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.
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