It's strange, really. Not the fact that I keep updating this blog that has little to no known readers, but the fact that seems to be very little anime on American television nowadays. Now I know anime is still in a bit of a niche genre, but roughly ten years ago anime was fairly common among children's television circuit. Most well known is the Toonami block, but there was also Kid's WB with Pokemon and Fox Kids with Digimon (yeah the mon genre was REALLY big back in the day). Anyway, Fox Kids basically relied on Digimon to bring in viewers and to compete with Pokemon. While Digimon did have a pretty good following and decent ratings, it still wasn't enough to compete with the powerhouse that was Pokemon. So Fox Kids decided "Hey since Pokemon is from Japan, why don't we get more cartoons form Japan." Thus, they imported anime all the way from Japan to be dubbed by the Saban company and anime was the majority of there programing with shows like Monster Rancher, Escaflowne and Dinozaurs. Judging from those titles, they were mostly of the action variety, but there was one imported anime that had more of a comedic Saturday morning cartoon bent to it. This is Flint the Time Detective.
It seems like the series got lost among the seas of Pokemon, Digimon and later Yu-Gi-Oh at the turn of the millennium. However, if you ever watched any of those shows and really had that thirst for anime as kid, chances are you've seen this show. Produced by Sanrio (yes the same Sanrio that created Hello Kitty), Flint was shonen series about a cave boy named Flint that was fossilized along with his father and revived in a futuristic Japan by a pre-teen brother/sister duo and there scientist uncle. Flint is then recruited to become a Time Detective (don't ask me how, it was only briefly touched upon in the first episode). What follows is Flint, his father who was turned into sledgehammer during the fossilization process and the twins who are there just to be Penny and Brain to Flint's Inspector Gadget. However, Flint isn't completely ineffectual despite his naivety. He basically can foil the bad guys' plans single-handedly as well as win over the Time-Shifters with his Goku level of niceness.
Oh I forgot to mention about the Time-Shifters. Time-Shifters are these Sarino-esq beings that flow in and out of the timeline of history and have various powers such as turning anything into gold, controlling weather and bringing artwork to life. Also, they can transform into two different forms depending on whose controlling them . A Con-form (which is basically an Eldritch nightmare) if they are controlled by evil or a Master form (which is basically humanoid superhero form with some exceptions) if controlled by good. These Time-Shifters are usually found in the hands of historical figures, such as the Wright Brothers, Leonardo da Vinci and even Bruce Lee. This is what made the show stand out from other animes released at the time. Most animes were toy-centric and used for pushing products, Flint had a bit of an educational tone to it mixed with the comedy and action. The show explained a little bit about the setting and the historical figures they meet without deviating from the plot too much. Also, since this was a Japanese anime, at least half of the places they visited was in Feudal or Edo-era Japan or even earlier. So I basically was learning stuff I wasn't event taught in high-school.
But if you ask me what the most memorable aspect of this cartoon is, that would the English theme song. A fast, jungle like pace and cavemen chanting that will be stuck in your head for days along with visual exposition of the plot for new viewers, all those lead to an ear worm of theme song. Just listen:
All in all, Flint was pretty much a standard Saturday morning cartoon. It didn't spawn a huge following like Pokemon and was cheesy in some places, but it still told great stories, had good humour at times and it also helped me get into to anime a bit more as well. Even though it may be lost among the more critically acclaimed or more marketable animes of today and yesterday, Flint did have unique premise for anime. How many anime series do you know that have a Dr. Who-like plot that is aimed at kid's? Maybe there could be more time-travel anime series as well. Until then, all we have is a cave kid with his talking sledge-hammer traversing the timeline and righting all of the wrongs.
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