When I was growing up, I watched a lot of anime that was dubbed into spanish. I didn’t know that English dubbed anime existed, and non of my friends told me that the cartoons we watched were in fact from Japan. So we watched contently, every morning all summer, never knowing what the real names or shows were, but we were glad that the latino channels were playing things that we enjoyed. (Usually latino television isn’t all that fun in the mornings; except for Plaza Sesamo which is a knockoff of Sesame Street)

Fast forward about 10 years and my friend and I were at Anime Con. We were checking out the tables of pirated dvd’s and vhs and I kept asking people about this soccer anime that i used to watch, and no one knew what it was. I was even made fun of by some more scornful vendors, and eventually I just stopped asking.

Then one day, I was sitting at work, and the show popped into my head, and so I searched the might youtube.com and here it is…a clip from my favorite Spanish Anime (although it is not really spanish, just dubbed with a spanish language track). It’s called Super Campeones, which translated means Super Champions.

That show carried my friends and I into daily battles at the park playing soccer. I wasn’t very good at it, but I would try hard.

Considering that my father was a soccer pro in Mexico, I should have been way better, but instead I was just slow and slow.

The anime is titled “Flash Kicker” and I couldn’t find a dvd or vhs of it, and am not sure if I would love the show now that I’m older. It’s an interesting way to get introduced into Anime, in my opinion, and while I don’t watch as much anime now, I do have fond memories associated with japanese animation.

For instance, did you know that I was the vice president of the Anime club at my high school? I bet you didn’t.

Fun times for sure. It’s nice to see that youtube serves to provide a little nostalgia for a moment or two.