Do you remember the Hamtaro video game? Or even Hamtaro?
He was an exceptionally cute little hamster who wasn't afraid to make every other hamster's life miserable whenever he could. Hamtaro Ham-Ham Heartbreak was released for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. It was based on the story of a hamster named Hamtaro, whom I thought came from the anime series I presume we all know, but it turns out he actually came from a manga.
Before becoming a beloved protagonist in a video game on iconic Nintendo handheld consoles, he was a cheeky anime character, and before that, he was already a sensation in a children's manga designed by Ritsuko Kawai.
Hamtaro was a cheerful, adventurous, and temperamental hamster who lived with a fifth-grader girl. Like in Sakura Card Captor, or in many other girly TV series and anime, the cheeky mascot seems like a very effective trope. And I fall for it every time.
The show's humor was expressive and mostly relied on the characters' personalities, which were so beautifully depicted in the animation that you couldn't help but feel tenderness toward the drawings.
The video game didn't just represent episodes in the TV series or the manga; it had its own storyline. Hamtaro and Bijou (a lovely white hamster with blue ribbons) have another mission: stopping Spat, a mischievous hamster causing chaos.
The graphics of Ham-Ham Heartbreak and all the other Nintendo Game Boy games are particularly nostalgia-inducing. There was something so relaxing about that simplicity. The world in those video games wasn't trying to be realistic; it was just aesthetic; it was its own little universe with a distinct look and feel.
Those games left room for imagination, and I have no doubt that we'd be going back to them in no time. Who doesn't want to play Zelda: Ocarina of Time again? And relax in that bidimensional landscape? We all deserve it.
And speaking of Zelda, when Hamtaro finds his underwhelming precious object (a spoon), a triumphant musical cue sounds in the distance, directly referencing the other iconic Nintendo game. It's clever humor taken to its maximum potential. And that's why I think everyone should play it.
Let's all be more like Hamtaro: Wake up, solve a little puzzle, help a friend out, wander around in a colourful hamster village, and learn a new ham-chat expression. That's it! Nothing else is needed for a cute, relaxing gaming evening.
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