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.

"Hamtaro" is a Japanese animated TV series first shown in 2000 and then introduced in the U.S. on the Cartoon Network on June 3, 2002. Focusing on a band of hamsters, it's one of the first Japanese series shown in the U.S. to be aimed at very young children. As such, parents should be more comfortable with it than they've been with the constant fighting and battle action on such other Japanese animated children's favorites as "Pokémon," "Digimon," "Dragon Ball Z" and "Sailor Moon." Children aged seven and up, however, will most certainly prefer the greater excitement found in "Pokémon" et al. That said, "Hamtaro" remains a genuinely charming entry for children aged 2-6 and boasts some very nice design, distinguished by bold lines and bright colors, and simple, efficient animation.

The title character is part of a growing band of "Ham-Hams," pet hamsters in a suburban neighborhood who sneak out of their homes to congregate in the well-furnished underground burrow of Boss, a field hamster who guides them on their adventures. Hamtaro is the pet of Laura, an elementary schoolgirl whose close friend and classmate, Kana, is also a hamster lover and has one of her own, Oxnard. Each episode tends to highlight a problem of Laura's or a project she's undertaking and then have the hamsters replicate it in their own world. When Laura has difficulty figuring out what to give her parents for Christmas, the hamsters endeavor to make sure Santa Claus remembers Boss on Christmas morning. When Laura and Kana have to come up with a piece for the school newspaper, the hamsters decide to start their own newspaper. (They're quite a literate bunch.) The hamsters talk to each other, but are unable to communicate verbally with their owners, except in a dream sequence in one episode where Hamtaro is a knight who comes to rescue Princess Laura from the Wicked Ham Wizard (Boss).

Hamtaro's design closely follows that found in the children's books by Ritsuko Kawai that provided the basis for this series. The hamsters are generally cute and cuddly, somewhat reminiscent of "Pokemon"'s Pikachu, and are differentiated from each other in clever ways. The English dubbing is generally good, although some of the hamsters have far-fetched accents that are not easily explainable. The design of Laura and her friends is different from the books and more typical of anime, resembling more closely the girls in "Cardcaptors." As of this writing, the original books are not available in the U.S. in English, although Japanese language editions can be found.

Shogakukan, the publisher of the books, produced the original series and supervised its English adaptation, maintaining a degree of control often lost to Japanese companies when a series of theirs is adapted for the U.S. market. The key change from the original is the replacement of Japanese signs with English ones in the homes and street scenes, although some Japanese lettering is visible to sharp-eyed viewers throughout.

Anime fans will want to see this out of curiosity, but will probably balk at the straight children's show approach and lack of abstract elements and fantasy touches found in just about all anime series seen in America. Teens and twentysomethings who remember all the "pro-social" Saturday morning TV cartoons of the 1980s (e.g. "The Get-Along Gang," "Pound Puppies," "Smurfs," "Rainbow Brite" et al) may see some resemblances here, although the once overarching insistence on group contentment over individual desire is thankfully downplayed.

I first saw this show on cartoon network and I became hooked on it.It's so adorable, and it's different from a lot of other anime.I mean, who doesn't love little talking hamsters?!? Oh, I heard that the movie was supposed to come out in America in November of 2003, but they canceled it!!!!Why?!? Oh well, maybe it will come out this year.... The animation is great, and it makes up for it's shortness by it's cuteness!!! If you are one of those people who only like fighting anime, then you should look somewhere else. I think that kids and adults of all ages would like this anime. Overall, i give it a 5 out of 5... Actually, I'll give it 10 out of 5!!! You have got to see this show!

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!

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.