Japanese Cartoons of 1970s

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

This page lists the most popular Japanese cartoons from 1970s to early 1980s.

小寶歷險記
海底小遊俠
大獅王
寶馬王子
小仙女

Epilogue

Watching them now, you find them extremely silly, childish, especially the scifi ones for boys. Exactly. That's what they are, children's cartoons. But when i was watching them at age ~10, it wasn't anything “childish”. It is your life. It is the chat at school, it is the lives to lookup to, it is the philosophy to learn from. Knowledge of the stories is a show of superiority, having the toys is a status symbol, being able to draw them, is a mark of genius, the admiration of peers. It was a BIG deal. The heros, heroines, their love, difficulties, are major parts of our life, just as we adults today regards with career, cars, housing, or even politics.

One big thanks to 張哲生 (Jason), who took the time to collect and annotate these old cartoons. In fact he wrote a book 飛呀！科學小飛俠. His website is: jasonforce.com. In the following, Chinese excerpts are usually from his youtube annotation, and English are usually from Wikipedia.