Ran into this commercial on Youtube recently.
When I was a kid, I remember liking the Shogun Warriors. Got a comic value pack of the first three issues, and maybe a toy or two of them, independent of Goldorak/Grendizer, who was both somehow a part of the Shogun Warrior family, as well as a bit independent of them, as this commercial suggests.
Indeed, mostly I grew up with Goldorak in France, who is known in English as Grendizer. Goldorak was a popular figure in France when I was growing up. My father liked to recall how the cartoon was so highly anticipated, that the entire neighborhood seemed to disappear when the time came for broadcast. The shared playground at the center of our apartment complex in Bois d'Arcy would be teeming with children and their parents maybe half an hour before Goldorak aired. Then, it was like a ghost town once the show was actually on. That was how popular it was.
Also, Goldorak had it's own toy line (Ceji Arbois) and comics. I still have some old Goldorak toys and comics from my own childhood. It still brings me back some fond memories of Goldorak, because like most French kids at the time, I was quite taken by him and the major characters, especially Actarus, the lead guy (the pilot of Goldorak, if you will).
When we moved to the United States, Goldorak was virtually non-existent. The Shogun Warriors also were mostly invisible, although there were traces of them (the occasional toy, and the comics, which I rarely ever saw on the newsstands). But they felt like a bit of a connection, a link if you will, to my past, loving Goldorak.
So in that spirit, it seemed like this was worth sharing. It's funny, because these kinds of things look so dated now. That commercial really is a product of it's era. I remember commercials in this spirit and presentation. Sometimes, it feels like it was no so long ago. Then there are other times when these things feel like they were indeed a long time ago. That is particularly true when you look at how much things have changed in our society since then. Even cartoons and comics and toys have changed. It feels to me that kids today are not nearly as interested in physical toys these days like they were during my own childhood. Meanwhile, video games, which were already quite popular during my own childhood, have taken on a disproportionately prominent position in their focal point of interest. Also, this so-called "information age," with the internet and all else that contributes to the constant and relentless stream of information that we are all exposed to, just has lent pretty much everything a very different feel.
Yet, I still have nostalgia for these kinds of things. Simply seeing even a commercial like this for toys from the era of my own childhood brings some of that back, at least for a brief flicker. It probably sounds cliche to say that those were simpler times. But it sure feels like they were simpler times. At least for us back then who were kids, anyway.
Below is the commercial that got me on this topic to begin with.
Enjoy.
Shogun Warrior 1976 Commercial
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