This series is my occasional countdown to Anime Weekend Atlanta. I’ve done it two or three times with varying levels of success, and I am once again embarking on a quest to spend 100 days writing 100 posts about anime, manga, animation, comics, film, and conventions. We’ll see what happens.
100 Days of Anime 2026
Day 003/100
OP of the Day: “Battlecry” by Nujabes feat. Shing02 from Samurai Champloo (2004)
Currently Watching: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
If you ask people (ok, millennials) what their first anime was, they’ll probably point to something like Pokémon, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon or maybe even Cowboy Bebop. I wonder, though, for millennials how true that really is.
I wonder if folks my age even actually know what the first anime they watched was. There were all kinds of shows trickling into TV lineups and VHS bins and therefor into my viewing habits long before I was aware there was such a thing as an anime or a country called Japan.
Speed Racer and Astro Boy were out there, but I figure my “first anime” was probably something obscure for small children. Probably it was Noozles or The Wondrous Koala Blinky.
Produced by Nippon Animation amid a mid ’80s koala frenzy in Japan, Noozles ran on Nick Jr. for a time. I had maybe four episodes of the 26 episode series on VHS, and of course it never occurred to little Chase that it was anything other than a cartoon like all the other cartoons. (Because, of course, it is really just a cartoon. Anime is cartoons. A shocking development.)
I liked koalas so some adult bought me the cute koala show probably from a discount VHS bin, and I watched the tapes over and over. It wasn’t until the first time I did this “100 Days of Anime” sprint that I thought about this show again and wondered where it came from.
Wikipedia informs me that Noboru Ishiguro directed the show (or maybe some episodes?). Ishiguro is best known for his work on Space Battleship Yamato, Macross, and other sci-fi titles.
Anyway, maybe Noozles is my first anime. Maybe it isn’t. I watched a lot of cartoons as a little kid in the ’90s. I suppose what I haven’t really developed (and won’t develop in this post because it’s late and I’m tired) is that Japanese animation was getting imported in quiet ways as well as loud ways for decades, and it’s interesting how we as individuals and as a cultures have developed the notion of anime and what gets lumped in and outside that category.
Alas, I don’t expect Binky merch will be storming the vendor’s hall at any anime conventions anytime soon.
Until next time.
chasetriesagain.com 