Blast From The Past - Cardcaptor Sakura (CITV)

If there's any series I'd give an arm and a leg for a UK release of, it'd be Cardcaptor Sakura (or Cardcaptors as it was known by in the English dubbed version).

Back in the early 2000s, I'd just started at secondary school and I distinctly remember rushing home on weekdays to catch the latest episode of Cardcaptors. Here was a cartoon that felt distinctly adolescent - both in tone, and visually - something that offered adventure, fantasy and an escape from reality. Twenty minutes to lose yourself in, leaving homework behind in a dizzying spin of addictive 'gotta see the next episode' viewing. Much like World of Warcraft did for me years later, Cardcaptors was the door into another world - a means to transport your mind into a world where excitement lurked behind every door and adventure could be found in everyday school life.

In Sakura, you had the plucky heroine. With Lee, you had the boyish self-insert entry point that the English version so clearly played up (much to the chagrin of fans of the original Japanese version). Together, you had one hell of an adventure series. There was even the collectible card element, which coming off the back of the Pokemon craze, felt oh so timely.

And, man oh man, that theme tune...

 

Blast From The Past - Monster Rancher (CBBC)

Everyone remembers watching Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh on CITV. For a generation of young Brits, it was the first experience with anime in any shape or form. But let's not forget that, believe it or not, there was actually a time when the BBC showed anime too, in the form of Monster Rancher.

Broadcast from 2001 to 2002 if I remember correctly, the above villain (Gali) ended up lingering in my memory long after the show itself had evaporated from my mind. For years on years, I racked my brains desperately trying to recall the name of the above character - with only a firm imprint on my mind of a 'villain with the face of a sun' to remember the show by. Finally, late last year, I remembered.

For some reason, good ol' Gali had really left an impression on the pre-teen version of myself. I'd just started secondary school, and on coming into school one day, we were tasked to draw a rendition of Caliban as part of our studies of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Having just sat down to an episode of Monster Rancher that morning whilst scoffing down my cornflakes, I promptly drew my Caliban as a Gali-inspired monstrosity.

Shakespeare and Monster Rancher - such natural bedfellow, of course.

Incidentally, I love that you can still see remnants of the show in the BBC's programming schedules as part of their BBC Genome archive project. Anyone for a spot of Tweenies and Playdays?

Sadly, the show - like Digimon - is now long out of print in the UK, with all that remains being a 2002 three-episode VHS.