I have many favorite anime, spanning across multiple genres. Action, comedy, supernatural, slice of life, drama, psychological – pick your flavor.
Feeling a bit nostalgic, I decided to look back on my fond memories of childhood. Saturday morning cartoons, a little bit of Bananas in Pajamas and a bowl full of sugary puffed cereal.
For years I believed that my very first REAL anime experience was the classic Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, but it turns out I had been watching anime far earlier than that…Fushigi na Koala Blinky, or as it was known to me, Noozles.
Show Summary
Blinky is a magical inter-dimensional koala that is in stasis until a little girl, Sandy, boops (or “noozles”) his nose with hers. He then awakens and both he and Sandy have all sorts of adventures. Sandy fears that if anyone found out about the talking koala he will get taken away, so his default is to pretend to be a stuffed animal. Her grandmother eventually knows about it and she’s totally cool with a potentially dangerous alien animal hanging out with her granddaughter.
In later episodes it begins to get a little more story-line oriented, though it has the classic trappings of a kids cartoon of the era (forced morals and general nonsense that doesn’t connect, but maybe that was due to the Americanization of the series). The girl’s grandfather, an archaeologist, has been missing for a long time with Blinky being the key to finding him. Blinky’s pink koala sister, aptly named Pinky, also appears demanding that Blinky return back to their homeland.
Sandy, Blinky and Pinky end up warping to KoalaWallaLand (the English dub is full of cringe, more than I remembered as a child). The koalas homeland inhabitants all seem to have been inspired by Australian animals; kiwi, kangaroos, etc. The three soon discover that there are orbs holding the human & koala universes together which are now in peril, with KoalaWallaLand on the verge of destruction. Sandy’s grandfather somehow knew this and attempted to do something about it which led to his disappearance.
In her journey deciphering cryptic messages and finding talismans left behind by her grandfather, Sandy learns about friendship and how restore the balance between earth and KoalaWallaLand.
This was a cute animated series that delved into the genres of fantasy & science fiction during my formative years. I remember it had such an impact on me that I even had a stuffed animal koala to watch the show with and pretend that we were traveling through dimensions in between episodes. I still have that very same koala to this day.
This was a lovely romp through memory lane, and I’m glad to see where my nerd beginnings originated from.
Thanks Noboru Ishiguro! (if you’re into older anime, you might recognize some of his later works)
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