El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

Starting from clockwise: Grandpapi Rivera/Puma Loco, Manny Rivera/ El Tigre, and Rodolfo Rivera/ White Pantera

Before I will start about this entry, let me apologize for having a long-term waiting to see my new post. It's just because I'll have to fix my college subject classes starting this week.

When I saw this cartoon show on TV5 and Nickelodeon cable channel, I was suddenly amazed and I thought it's Nickelodeon's cartoon rivaled for Cartoon Network's Mucha Lucha. Maybe I'm wrong and Nick Jr's. Dora the Explorer is not only a cartoon with Mexican language. El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (sometimes nicknamed as "El Tigre") is another Nickelodeon show aired around year 2007 to 2008. Set in fictional place Miracle City in Mexico, El Tigre tells about the adventures of 13-year old boy Manny Rivera. He has superpowers and deals whether if he's going into good or evil side. His father Rodolfo Rivera (a.k.a White Pantera) is a superhero and wanted his son to be like him, but Granpapi Rivera (a.k.a. Puma Loco) likes his grandson as a super villain.

For us, we can say that we are on the good side but sometimes we are in the clutches of doing bad things. For El Tigre, while his villains show up to do crime his conscience is his real challenge. He has to learn to distinguish what's right and what's wrong. Like does Manny use his father's money to buy a tattoo maker instead of a can of guacamole? Or letting his prized animal die and revive it in a horrible way? Those are examples of issues that Manny deals with it.

Manny is just like a tween who never know what responsibilities are and instead to have fun. While he decide which side he will be, he makes trouble along with his best friend Frida Suarez as happy time. Manny also likes to fight for good or worst. He transforms into El Tigre by spinning his buckle belt. He (sometimes along with his family) face many villains including El Oso, Sartana the Dead, Titanium Titan and many super villains in order to protect Miracle City from ruin.

Another exciting reason why El Tigre is that the animation uses Flash plus the hand-drawn animation for effects. The creators and staff of the show added many Mexican culture stuff - from costumes up to famous Mexican people. Whether if your not a Mexican resident, you'll still like to watch it's action and comedy moments. There's even one moral lesson you'll learn in El Tigre , not even Grandpapi Rivera can't resist this value - "Family comes first, whether you're a superhero or not".

If you wanted to find out more about El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, you can check out the creator's DeviantArt account at http://mexopolis.deviantart.com/ and their Blogger account at http://tigreroar.blogspot.com/.

End of TV5 Animega? Oh My!

Last year, TV5's Animega seem like a hit for Filipino anime fans for airing anime shows every weekday nights and weekends as replays. But now this year, it's schedule will fade away sooner. According to Zen Otaku Honbu's latest news here, TV5 officially announced that Animega will temporarily go off-air starting May 31, 2010. I'm sure this will be much
dissappointment for anime fans and worried if the anime schedule will be gone in evenings.

Before I found out that news, last week I really enjoyed Shrek, Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third on 5Max Movies which they were aired around 7:30 PM. Then, I found out that there are some major changes in Animega. First of all, Clannad which was aired every 6:30 PM and now it is completely finished then Yatterman was moved in 3:30 PM from 6:00 before Street Fighter. Another one, Casshern Sins was moved in 6:00 PM because at this week will completely finish while D-Gray Man is still on air but on 7:00 PM. Last one is that Fullmetal Alchemist still air every Friday nights from 7:30 PM up to 8:30 PM before Midnight DJ. Sounds like a major difference, right? Even at their Facebook fan page, many fans are complaining about the movement of schedule and some of them suspected if the line-up will replace Koreanovelas.

In my observation and opinion, TV5 should not remove their Animega line-up because it is one of the main reasons why the station reach it's success. Animega is also different because every 6:00 PM up to 8:00 PM is the time where news from other stations air while viewers will enjoy anime (especially while they're eating dinner). Best of all, TV5 Animega is the home of requested popular anime shows like Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Code Geass and Lucky Star. From 2008 starting with Yamato Nadeshiko: The Wallflower and Shakugan no Shana, viwers are following the anime timeslot and supported that TV5 should air more anime shows.

While the school time is near, I can't imagine what will happen if the kids will not enjoy watching adult primetime shows like news and dramas and have no time for anime slot. It will be very dull and boring! We also wonder what will happen if many stations especially ABS-CBN, GMA 7, Studio 23 or even TV5 itself place full of Koreanovelas and other dramas over shows for young ones like anime.

Yatterman Remake

Just after TV5's Masked Rider Hibiki ended, another new anime replaced called Yatterman. Suprisingly, when I search about this anime it was indeed a remake of the original Yatterman which was created in year 1977 up to 1979 by Tatsunoko Productions. Before the 2008 remake, the 1970's Yatterman was the 2nd longest show created by Tatsunoko Productions after Time Bokan. It was also the part of Time Bokan series.

Up: (from left to right) Gan-chan and Ai-chan .Down: Yatta-wan the Robot Dog, Dice and the Yatterman

Yatterman 2008 remake

Yatterman tells about the two young mechanic heroes who are trying to stop the Dorombo Gang from searching their boss' Dokuro Stones which it has an ability to grant wishes whoever gets it.From the original series, Gan-chan and Ai-chan transforms into Yatterman with the help of their mechanic robot dog named Yatter-Wan and travel diffrent parts of the world in order to search the Dokuro Stones. But everything is not on their direct way if there are Dorondo Gang, lead by Queen Doronjo and her wacky troublesome henchmen Boyacki and Tonzra trying to stop the heroes and get what they wanted. In the end, the Yatterman always win the battle and found the stones.

Since am I talking about the remake, Yatterman was created in year 2008 with it's new changes but still the original character design are still there. One of the changes about the anime is that instead of Dokuro Stones, both teams are searching Dokurobei Rings that is scattered all around the world. Gan-chan is also given a personality for him as a slacker and not quite serious unlike his friend Ai-chan.

In the first episode, a genius but slacker mechanic Gan-chan tries to repair his old Yatter-Wan which is meant as a promised gift from her friend Ai-chan. In return, when the Dorondo Gang appeared to create trouble, Ai-chan displays her appeal in order to convince Yatter-Wan to awake from his sleep. The rest of the episode plots got the similar format - the Dorondo Gang creates a scam to earn money, summoned by their boss Dokurobei and tell where to get the next Dokurobei Ring; the Yatterman found about the plot and call their Yatter-Wan to follow the evil gang, Ai-chan feeds Yatter-Wan with "Mechatonic" which helps summon mini-mechas. At the last scene, the Dorondo Gang flew away from the explosion of their mechas (like the ones in Pokemon's Team Rocket) and being punished by Dokurobei.

Hmm, does this remind me of a Super Sentai show especially the original Yatterman was created during the time Himitsu Sentai Goranger was produced?

Voters Education Animation - Tagalog Version

A short Philippine animation project created by Bouncingball Inc. If you want to see the English version, click here.

Batibot Will Be Back!

One of the reasons why I'm so happy on TV5 is that according to this Pep.ph website here, TV5 will pick up the Philippines's oldest popular children's show Batibot. For people who grew up in 80's up to 90's will also glad about this. For those who want to know about the show, you can look my blog entry here which I posted last year.

I'm sure nobody will forget the memorable chacaters in Batibot like Pong Pagong, Kiko Matsing and the storyteller Kuya Bodgie. I also hope that original puppet chacters and the original song will return :)