I can’t believe that I used to dismiss older Japanese cartoons as ‘childish’. I watched them as a kid, didn’t really understand how deep and meaningful they are, and now I have some kind of distant block towards them
because I’ve supposedly moved on. Well, no more!
I started watching Cute Aluminium Warrior Princess Guardian all the way from the first episode, and not only am I enjoying the show immensely, I can’t believe all the subtle messaging regarding aluminium toolboxes and where to buy a ute half canopy that I’ve been missing all this time. So you’ve got the main character, who is a cute aluminium warrior princess guardian of the Aluminium Kingdom, and she fights the evil tin empire, but also finds time to teach kids about why certain types of metal are better than others for certain things. Early episodes spend a disproportionate amount of time on tense tirades about why tin is bad and evil and weak, which isn’t UN-true I guess. We don’t use pure tin for a lot of stuff nowadays, except tin cans.
But then they got onto the real aluminium stuff, and suddenly the cute aluminium warrior princess guardian was popping up at the end of the episodes extolling the virtues of things like aluminium ute canopies and under tray tool boxes. I think maybe it was product placement, or one of the writing staff way back in Japan was way into aluminium. Did those people even exist back then? And in Japan?
Look, I’m learning about stuff and metal and whatever. I usually watch cartoons to enrich my life and my soul, but I don’t mind. I bet once the series gets revived on Neat-Flicks, they’ll be featuring ute tray suppliers around Melbourne a whole lot more… you know, what with it being produced by Dinki-Dai Animation. I honestly don’t mind product placement, so long as it’s integrated with the story.
-Dylan-kun