My Lost Media Anime Search
I’ve got to document what I’ve determined over the years and some refining I’ve done last month in order to get serious about the search.
To my memory, this anime aired around 2 AM - 5 AM PST on Cartoon Network between 2004 through 2007. I was watching this in Northern California originally with Comcast, althought it shouldn’t impact a network’s airings too much from provider to provider. It was after Toonami had finished its scheduled broadcasting, but before Cartoon Network started airing it’s usual early morning content around 6 AM.
To my memory, stuff like Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakasho played around 4 ish, 5 ish in the morning, taking place after this mystery anime.
The anime itself could have been produced in the late 90′s or early 2000′s, which would have given it time to be dubbed, aged not wonderfully, and be shoved into an undesirable timeslot of like 3 AM, when realisitically no one is going to watch it, so it’s mostly filling dead air. (But I was a weird kid, and when I couldn’t sleep, I’d watch TV and it’d be on. The only other audience I can forsee is people who were drunk, high, stayed up that late, never got sleep to start with or anywhere in between)
The West didn’t know what to do with anime at this point in time, especially weird stuff. So dubbing it and shoving it in a timeslot and hoping it didn’t fail was sometimes the best they could do. It was sometimes pretty cheap to get some lesser known titles and the rights to air them.
As for the description of what I recall:
I remember it taking place in a somewhat apocalyptic city, but it wasn’t a mecha anime and space was not involved. It involved someone likely on a motorcycle going through old animated styled alleyways. It was probably Toyko, but called something weird in English instead.
It had buildings that were definitely Japanese based, including a ramen restaurant. I recall this specifically because two young characters had a date at this restaurant. The rest of the team waited outside.
There was a young girl, the team mascot in the sense, as she was maybe 8 or 9 and she was notably annoying but strong. She had long pink hair, I believe in long thing pigtails. She had a very big crush on this one character the team was trying to recruit into their gang to (I believe?) win a tournament in a fantasty setting.
The character they were trying to recruit was a young man who had three ‘stages’ or what older media and anime would have called ‘three personalities’ he could shift into. (I know it’s not PC anymore, but it’s the best description I’ve got, and I think the show specifically refered to him in this context, but not specifically noting DID; a lot of media sucked at this early on).
His three ‘stages’ were:
Normal Stage: His normal, dopey, nerdy self. He is very much crushing on the assertive annoying pink haired girl and looks about her age. His eyes were not visible, either obscured by glasses or given the tiny slant line detail older anime used to show a character that was meek, shy, unattractive, or nerdy. He had black hair cut into a fairly nerdy bowl cut. I think he wore green and was covered fairly well by his clothes (long sleeves, high collar). He often stumbles over his words and bumbles. The pink-haired girl can’t stand this form, and wants her cool BF back.
Middle Stage: His hair is slightly spiked and his eyes are visible. He looks somewhat cooler but can be seen getting flustered easily. If he is annoyed further, he converts to the last stage, but if he starts feeling the warm fuzzies (such as when the annoying pink-haired girl starts to express more feelings to him and be nicer and flirty with him, he’ll convert back to the first stage, which makes her very upset and will probably smack him or pout when it happens.
Cool Stage: This form had very expressive eyes, cool eyes like DBZ characters or Rurouni Kensin. His hair was up and spiked. His chest was more visible and he stood taller and more confident. He has Zero interest in the annoying pink-haired girl, who only is obsessed with this form specifically. He is some very valued fighter or ally for the team, and they wanted him to help them in their goal.
In my searching, trying to find a specific ‘annoying pink haired girl’ in 2000′s or 90′s animes is… as you imagine, fucking impossible. A needle in a stack of more needles. Additionally, trying to find a side character with black hair and three personalities also does not lend itself to an easy search. There’s a lot of characters like this. And sadly, considering I was at best 7/8 to about 10 during this time and that it was airing at such an early time in the morning, of course I never bothered to remember the names of anything. I didn’t have a recording box on my tv. Those used to cost a lot.
I mean, my tv looked like this, with a bunch of little kid stickers on it:
Of what I know, it was NOT:
a harem
mecha
completely fantasy
It likely had:
a tournament or competition for some high reward
something about saving their seedy world from falling into bad hands?
an episode where they send the annoying pink-haired girl to go on a date with the character mentioned above in order to convince him to join their team
he does join their team after all, but the pink haired girl has a love hate/heavily ironic relationship played for laughs
she kisses Cool Stage him on the cheek, and POOF, he’s back to normal nerd and she pushes him away all annoyed with a squeaky voice. it’s played for comedy.
If anyone has any fucking idea what I’m talking about, please help me. I’ve combed through what archives remain of Toonami broadcasting. I’m combing through broadcast history of anime aired in the U.S. I’m trying to find newspaper archives of tv broadcasting for all hours of the day in my area from those years (IT’S HARD, Y’ALL.)
UPDATE
fuckign UPDATE IT WAS FUCKING BATTLE B-DAMAN.
i'm already seated and I need to sit down more
it was THIS fucking episode of battle b-daman
Raised by cats until he was five, Yamato Delgato's only dream was to play B'Daman-the official sport of the B'DaWorld. However, his dream co
Episode 18.
I'm at least 95% sure it was this anime, and I just muddled a character with the annoying pink-haired girl.
My evidence:
It falls within my timeline of 2004-2007, in the earliest of those years, arguably the foggiest of my memories at the age of like 8.
I misinterpreted it as playing on Toonami (I was half right in a sense). In reality, Battle B-Daman played on Jetix, Cartoon Network, and G4, all channels I had access to with our cable growing up. It's very likely I just changed the channel to Cartoon Network when it was over and Inuyasha, Rurouni Kenshin, etc was playing next. The channels were very close together on Comcast packages then. My stubby little fingers could press the buttons on the TV to change the channel with not too many clicks to go through.
And This, which hit me like a brick wall to the face:
Looking into episode 18, she actually feeds him because food is his weakness. The shifts in personalities in animation are extremely close to what I remember.
I'm. In a bit of daze right now, I'll break this down more later.
But the real fucking kicker, the real kick in my fucking gnads, the reason I'll grind my teeth for the next few months... is I was looking in the wrong place for the annoying girl character.
Is that the girl is fucking blonde.
I'm going to stick my head in my modern oven and scream into it until I feel light-headed and better.
Jesus christ. I didn't think I'd hit a New Year's Resolution by fucking MARCH. on MARCH 2nd.
I feel like Nick Robinson finally finding and playing the McDonald's Training DS Game. I feel like Bobdunga getting the Mean Girls DS Game. I need to lay down. I need an ibuprofen. And some pudding. And another shower.
