Hamtaro - P'tits hamsters, grandes aventures

It's a cute show, and it's good. The facts that I'm 22 years old and a show that seems to be aimed at the 8 & Under Club held my interest for more than a minute should attest to that.

I tuned in expecting a show about a world populated by hamsters and other animals alone, and I got a show about hamsters and their owners. Particularly the main hamster, Hamtaro, and his 10-year-old owner Laura. The general gist of the show is that Laura's family has moved to a new town, and her hamster Hamtaro, who's vastly smarter than she knows (she still thinks he can't get out of his cage, silly girl), makes all kinds of new friends.

The world of these hamsters is basically a mimic of the human world; hamsters seem to have the skills and personality quirks of their owners. And every episode, there's a situation that Laura faces that is duplicated in the hamsters' lives - Laura's dad loses his glasses, Hamtaro gets some of his friends to help look for them; Hamtaro follows Laura to school, and gets an idea for a hamster school; Laura gets a crush on a boy, a girl hamster has a crush on a boy hamster. So on and so forth.

In particular, the hamsters seem to view it as their mission to take care of their owners. Just listen to one of the lyrics in the theme song: "If she heads for trouble, we won't let her.: In one episode Hamtaro thinks he made Laura sick by keeping her up all night (she just needed a nap), and another hamster tells him: "Humans mean responsibility. If you can't take care of your human, you shouldn't have her."

Overall, if you're into cute, it's a cool show. I'd still rather have a show that's less about real life in the human aspect (I have to live real life every day, after all, I don't need to see it in cartoons), but this is okay.

Warning: any kid over 8 or 9 will probably be less into this show and more into one of the DB shows or shows of that nature.

The fact that I watched this show in the first place is enough to show how anime deprived I am. After months and months of only DBZ on Toonami, the Cartoon Network got this show. The concept is easy to understand hamsters who meet during the day while their owners are wherever. The concept also shows that this is not a show that will likely attract "Cowboy Be Bop" fans. However despite my original misgivings, I find the show to be absolutely charming. It's more like American cartoons than most anime and doesn't have the rough fighting that is the hallmark of most anime series at least those that make it dubdom in the US. The show will be well liked by little kids though I forsee that hamsters will be one popular Christmas present this year for Hamtaro viewers. I also like that several of the best voice actors found in anime are voicing this show such as Brad Swaile and Ted Cole. Anyone under the age of 8 should love this show and anime fans should enjoy seeing a different style of anime,

I myself think that "Hamtaro" is a cute anime myself. I think Hamtaro, and his Ham Ham friends are adorable too. I love it since they go on all of those adventures. That just rocks! Overall, a very cute anime, better than that "Pokemon", or "Dragonball Z" garbage although it is intended for a much younger audience. 10/10.

This cartoon relies on cuteness, intuitive humor, and pretty good animation; and it does quite well.

While it may not be the most exciting, action-packed thing out there, it gets a smile and a laugh more than three times from myself and anyone else who is around watching it with me. If you sit around and watch mindless cartoons all day, like most of the stuff on Nickelodeon and the major networks, then you probably will not like this show. Because it does not rely on gross-out humor, stupid jokes, or idiotic-looking characters, I find it quite clever.

It *does* happen to be geared towards a younger audience -- what cartoon with little animals isn't? It's refreshing in the fact that it's innocent, much better than practically anything on TV today that's smothered with innuendo or lack of intelligence.

There's a wide variety of characters, and the animation is excellent compared to most of the drab and repetitive stuff I usually come across ('Sabrina the Animated Series' or 'DBZ'). It doesn't seem to skip details and effects are well done. Plus, there are plenty of good voice actors to round out the crew -- Ted Cole especially, in my opinion. The dubbing is well-done, and that's coming from me -- I HATE dubbed anime. While Hamtaro's voice does grate occasionally, it suits his character.

If you just want to watch a nice, clean, decent show that doesn't depend on stupidity for humor... watch this.

*4/5*

PS: You may get more of a kick out of it if you own a hamster.

I remember watching this show for the first time when I was about 12 years old. I had been home from school that day for a forgotten reason (I didn't like school past age 11 but I had been allowed to watch TV that morning when normally if avoiding school I would have been trapped in my bedroom all day, so maybe I was just sick but I can't remember), and at about 7:30 AM my mom was channel surfing, she hit YTV and we were both like "huh? what's this?" and as we watched it we learned what the show was about: a group of domestic hamsters who hang out in the burrow of Boss, a wild hamster, while the domesticated hamsters' owners are at school. The hamster "club", called the Ham-Hams, have fun adventures with Boss and when the other hamsters' owners are almost home, they scurry home before the owners knew anything unusual. I still wonder why Laura, Hamtaro's owner, had the family name of Haruna even though her first name was American. That just plain confuses me about some anime characters. I've always preferred the ending song over the opening theme (the latter of which is so distant to me that I've actually forgotten how it goes!) Hamtaro is actually one of the few shows I know of that actually has a song at the end, instead of an instrumental version of the opening theme. Overall, very cute, and I don't care if it's for 4-10 year olds. I am autistic, so stuff from that age group interests me more often than not anyway!