I recently discovered a Mahou Shoujo fighting game called Magical Chaser thanks to a link referral for my Comet-san review, and decided to play it for a bit. The first thing that surprised me though was that of the eight characters playable in the game, there were two I didn’t recognize at all. One of them was the title character of the late 90s/early 00s anime Kasumin, and the other was Popuri from Fushigi Mahou Fan Fan Pharmacy, an early 00s anime.

I don’t presume to know every anime out there, and I don’t think anyone would ever expect me to have watched every show, but having been an active fan for a while it still surprises me whenever I discover a show I have never heard of at all. It’s like there’s an uncomfortable hole in my knowledge that weakens my desire to be a well-rounded fan with a broad view of anime as a whole. I get over it quickly though, and what amazes me more is that both shows, from what little I’ve seen, are really appealing. They’re the sort of thing I definitely would like to watch more of, and I can only hope I’ll have the opportunity to some day.

No one I know had ever heard of Kasumin or Fan Fan Pharmacy either, and it made me realize that there’s this pit of knowledge in the western anime fandom from about 1998 to 2003 due to a number of circumstances. Digisubs were barely coming into their own at this time, and the chances of every show in a season being subtitled or even released untranslated were slim to none. It’s no surprise that these shows fell through the cracks.

I’d like to uncover more shows like this, to know that for everything available online today, there’s still more wonderful things to find, more to learn about anime past. I also want to watch more magical girl shows.