These past few months, I’ve been nostalgia tripping. It began last semester when me and my flatmates were discussing old-school anime used to watch before the whole ANIMAX thing came to be. Because the internet is much faster here in China than it’s back home, it’s easy to spot and watch those old anime that a lot of young people aren’t familiar with anymore. Like Cooking Master Boy, Power Stone, Shadow Skill, Cyber Team in Akihabara, Wedding peach, etc. At least, some of these aren’t the really popular ones so not a lot of younger people are familiar with these.
This semester I switched from Japanese anime to English cartoons, I kind of promised my roomie I’d lay off the Japanese anime for a while because she said it was interfering with my learning Mandarin and that it seemed I was learning Japanese much better. Either way, I began with a series that I wouldn’t say is quite old, but has been something I’ve been dying to just finish from start to finish.
Justice League and Justice League Unlimited
In some way you can say this is pretty new, but pretty old-school at the same time. My mom had a lot of these DC and Marvel comics (Yes, I honestly cannot really tell the difference between the 2, forgive my ignorance!) packed away in this box we had at home. When I was much older, she let me read some of them, she even bound some of them together into a sort-of hardbound book. I’m not familiar with most characters as I didn’t really understand the concept of superheroes much when I was young, but the story of JL and JLU struck me as interesting when I began watching it on Cartoon Network a few years back. I’ve never watched the complete series so I took it upon myself to watch it all, and I did.
In fact, I finished it sometime last week, or the week before last. Now, I’m on to my second nostalgia trip.
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
In my childhood days, Jonny Quest was very much a vivid companion. I remember both the original Jonny Quest series, which was a much simpler version, and the sequel of which can be seen above. During the days I visited my grandparents in my dad’s hometown, I was at one time the only child in the house because my parents had me go alone so I could learn to be independent. And at that time, my younger cousins lived in the house on the other side of the street, so I spent many a days glued to that somewhat old-school fat television while watching Jonny Quest. Even now, there are a whole lot of episodes that remain familiar to me.
The one I have now though is incomplete and not as clear as my copy of Justice League Unlimited, but the amount of nostalgia is unimaginable. I can almost see myself as that young kid watching television really close to the screen while in that big old house in the province.
The next cartoon TV series on my list….
X-Men Evolution
This is definitely next on my list. After that, well…we’ll just have to see. My roomie is trying to get me to download Jetsons and the like. I mentioned to her old cartoons I suddenly remembered like Birdman, Blue Falcon, and some other Hanna-Barbera cartoons that I’ve just re-discovered via Google.
It’s quite funny though that a few days ago as I was watching my cartoons, my local Chinese flatmate spotted me and asked me why I was watching cartoons? Wasn’t I too old for that? It reminded me of my 6-year-old cousin whom I saw sometime last month. She saw me playing on my PSP and asked me why I still played with one when I was already 20 plus years old. She then proceeded to ask me why I was at my age and still unmarried. Haha.
Adults can still love cartoons, anime, and love playing video games. I don’t see how growing older or growing up has anything to do with forgetting the things you loved doing as a kid.
