'They'll Rerun It Anyway,' Said Dad. It Took 35 Years.

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Kingyo Chuuihou! ("Goldfish Warning!") is a TV anime from Toei Animation that first aired in Japan in 1991, based on Neko Nekobe's manga for girls. It's a slapstick school comedy starring a girl named Wapiko and Gyopi, a pink goldfish that floats through the air. For the show's 35th anniversary, Toei's museum channel on YouTube is putting up the whole series, one episode every Monday, each available for two weeks.

The announcement brought back a very specific memory for one viewer. On the night the final episode aired, their father decided the family was going out to eat. When they begged to stay home and watch, he snapped that anime always gets rerun anyway. As far as anyone can remember, it never was.

In most homes back then there was one TV, and the parents decided what was on it. Recording on VHS was fiddly and easy to get wrong, and streaming didn't exist. If you missed a broadcast, it was simply gone. Plenty of people turned out to have a finale of their own they never got to see.

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Kingyo Chuuihou!: on the night of the original finale, my dad suddenly announced we were eating out. I begged to stay and watch, and he got mad, said “Anime always gets rerun anyway!”, and dragged me along. So I might finally get to see it, 30 years later.

きんぎょ注意報!、本放送最終回の日に父が外食に行くと言い出して、どうしても観たいと言ってもどうせアニメなんてすぐ再放送するんや！って怒られて連れて行かれてからの30年ごしで観ることになるかもしれん。

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Did it ever actually get rerun? 😆

再放送ありました？😆

Pretty sure it never did, not even once. But for the 35th anniversary they’re putting every episode up on YouTube!

再放送たぶん一度もなかったけど35周年記念でYouTubeで全話公開がはじまるのー！

Time rewinds and you get to watch it!!

巻き戻って見れる！！

@toeianime_MC — Official

(゜))« TV anime 35th anniversary (゜))« 『#きんぎょ注意報！』 is coming to YouTube! One episode every Monday at 6 p.m., each one up for two weeks only! The first, on Mon 9/21 at 6 p.m., is set to be a Premiere 😍 Subscribe and stay tuned ♪ #東映アニメーションミュージアムチャンネル (The (゜))« is a tiny goldfish.)

(゜))<<TVアニメ35周年記念(゜))<< 『#きんぎょ注意報！』がYouTubeに登場！毎週月曜日18時に1話づつ、各話2週間の期間限定公開です！初回の9/21(月)18時はプレミア公開の予定😍 チャンネル登録してお待ちください♪ #東映アニメーションミュージアムチャンネル

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Wasn’t Kin-Chu from like Heisei 1? Anyway, a YT release now of all times, didn’t see that coming lol (Kin-Chu is fans’ shorthand for the title. Japan also counts years by imperial era, and Heisei 1 was 1989.)

きん注って平成元年とかじゃなかったっけ？しかし、今になってつべ放送か、びっくりだw

Well, if it’s around 36 years, I wasn’t that far off. Still, has it really been that long? Oof.

まぁ、36年程度なら間違ってはないか。にしてもあれからもうそんなに経つんだ、うっ。

So glad for you ☺️ Meanwhile, 50 years on, I still haven’t seen the finale of “The Adventures of Pepero, the Andes Boy” (^_^;) (A 1975 TV anime about a boy’s journey through South America.)

良かったですね☺️ 自分は50年たってもまだ「アンデス少年ペペロの冒険」の最終回を観られてません(^_^;)

I’ll watch it with my whole heart ☺️ Back then you couldn’t just record stuff like you can now, so things got missed, right?

心して観ます☺️昔って今ほど気軽に録画も出来ず見逃しましたよね。

That’s exactly how I missed the real finale of Ninku (which for some reason was like 5 episodes before the actual last one) (Ninku was a mid-’90s martial-arts action anime.)

おれソレで忍空の実質的な最終回（なぜか最終回の5話くらい前）を見そびれたわ

Ninku, so nostalgic! For kids back then, if you missed it live, that was it…

忍空懐かしい！昔の子どもはリアタイ逃したら終わりでしたよね…

For me it was Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, same deal. Still haven’t seen the finale…

自分はふしぎの海のナディアかそれでいまだに最終回見てないんだよね…

Same thing happened to me with Akuma-kun. Looked forward to it every week, and on finale day, of all days, my school had an evening rec event, so I missed it. Finally got to watch it on Netflix 30 years later. Held a grudge against that school the whole time. (Akuma-kun is a supernatural series by Shigeru Mizuki, creator of GeGeGe no Kitaro.)

この方と同じ感じで「悪魔くん」を毎週楽しみに見ていたのに最終回の日にその日に限って学校のレクレーションが夜にあり、見逃したのを、30年越しにネトフリで見られた。ずっと学校のこと恨んでたよね。

Someone else with the same story!! Mine was Chimpui! It’s probably on some streaming service now, but that’s not the point. Back THEN! When I was looking forward to it every single week! THAT’S when I wanted to savor the finale!! And I’ve never gotten closure on that feeling… (Chimpui is a 1989–91 anime from Fujiko F. Fujio, co-creator of Doraemon.)

同じパターンの人がいる！！私それ「チンプイ」でやられた！たぶん今だとサブスクで観れるはずだけど違うんだよあの時！毎週楽しみにしていたあの時に！最終回を噛み締めたかったんだよ！！の気持ちを回収できないまま今に至る…

Parents holding the “channel rights,” so nostalgic. ※Do you know what channel rights are? The parents’ right to decide what gets watched. Probably a mystery word younger people will never understand. Tell them parents pick the channel and they’d call it a human rights violation.

チャンネル権は親主導なの懐かしいですね。 ※チャンネル権分かりますか？親が見る番組決める権利の事です。今の世代だと一生分からない謎ワードですからね。チャンネル親が決めるとか言ったら人権違反って言われますね。

I know channel rights, AND the actual clunky dial you cranked round and round! Recording wasn’t easy either, so it was a right that hardly ever got passed down to the kids…

チャンネル権もなんならガチャガチャ回転させるホンモノのチャンネルも分かりますー！録画も気軽に出来ず子どもにはなかなか回ってこない権利…

So relatable… Even if you were home, you had no channel rights, so you couldn’t watch it either way… A sad tale from the past

あるある・・・家にいてもチャンネル権無いからどちらにせよ見れない・・・悲しい過去の話でした

Ah, if that was your childhood, then with parents of that generation, most homes had one TV in the living room, dad’s word came first even if you wanted to watch anime, and brushing off kids’ interests was just normal back then. I hope that childhood regret finally gets washed away.

ああ、そこが子供時代ならその世代の親というのは、大体の家庭はテレビが今にひとつだったし、アニメ見たくても父親の言うことが最優先で、さらに子供の趣味を軽く見てるのも当たり前の時代だったもんなあ。どうぞ子供の頃の心残りが雪がれますように。

I get this way too well. Then Mom takes pity and goes “I’ll record it for you,” except the channel on the VCR wasn’t set right, a totally different show got recorded, and you break down crying the moment you get home. That was the full package.

わかりすぎるし、見かねた母が「録画しておいてあげるから」って言うけどビデオデッキ内のチャンネル合わせが出来てなくて全然違う番組が録画されてて帰宅早々泣き崩れるところまでがセットだった

Stories like this always come with “just record it!”, but I can already see where it goes: something runs over time and you end up with sumo instead of your anime, I foresee it, de gozaru (?) (Live broadcasts running long used to shift the whole schedule, so timer recordings caught the wrong show. “De gozaru” is old samurai-speak, used here for comic effect.)

この手のは録画をしろ！までセットなんだけど、なんだかんだ延長とかでお目当てのアニメではなく相撲が録画されるまで読めるでござる（？）

The shock when you could first record straight from the on-screen TV guide was seriously wild, right?

番組表から録画できる機能が始まったときの衝撃本当にヤバかったよね？

Maybe this is part of why I didn’t like eating out as a kid.

子供頃に外食が好きじゃ無かったのはこういうのもあるかも。

35 years later and I still clearly remember what the finale was about and the scene it ended on!!! With old anime, miss it once and it was over…

最終回どんな話でどんなシーンで終わったか35年経ってもはっきり覚えてるよ！！！昔のアニメは一回見逃したらおしまいだったね…

Honestly I bet there are tons of people like that!! I really don’t remember it ever being rerun on regular TV, and the video rental shop only had it partway through… so this release is a really big deal…

いやホントそういう人たくさんいると思う！！マジで地上波で再放送してるの記憶になくてレンタルビデオ屋さんにも途中までしかなくて…状態だから今回の配信がどれだけ大事なことか…

I’ve watched all kinds of anime and tokusatsu, but surprisingly I can’t clearly recall anything like this happening to me. Funny place to realize how lucky I was. (Tokusatsu are live-action special-effects shows like Ultraman.)

アニメも特撮も色々観てきたけど、意外とこういう事案はハッキリ覚えてるもの無いんだよなぁ。妙なところで自分の恵まれていることを知る。

This tengu missed the finale of the Toshiaki Karasawa version of Journey to the West and despairs at the fact that it can probably never be seen again 👺 (A tengu is a long-nosed mountain spirit from folklore, and this poster writes in character as one. The show was a ’90s live-action TV drama.)

天狗は唐沢寿明版西遊記の最終回を見逃してしまい恐らくもう2度と観られないという事実に絶望している👺

Come to think of it, in the finale of Kuma no Pūtarō on Fuji TV, Pūtarō said “Watch the reruns too, ya hear,” and I’ve been waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiting ever since, and 30 years later it still hasn’t been rerun even once (Kuma no Pūtarō was a mid-’90s gag anime on Fuji TV, one of Japan’s major networks.)

そういえばフジでやってた「クマのプー太郎」の最終回で、プー太郎が「再放送も見ろよな」って言ってて、それからずーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーっと待ってるんだけど、30年経った今も一度も再放送してない

Lots of people are piling on here with the heartbreak they couldn’t shake back then (ouch), and I can’t help thinking: if their parents had shown sympathy, or at least some understanding, instead of getting angry, things might’ve turned out pretty differently.

これにたくさん当時のやりきれなかった思い（つらい）が引用でついてるけど、その時に親御さんとかが怒るんじゃなくて共感か少なくとも理解を示していたら、予後だいぶ違ったのかなぁと思ってしまう

My take

Nostalgic almost beyond words. I do wonder what today's kids will make of it, though.

#Relatable #Culture

Source & translation note

Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.

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