Although continuity is commonplace in anime, while growing I always assumed a kids’ show would essentially reset itself after the half hour was over. It was safe, it was reassuring. Nobody died or suffered any lasting consequences unless it was a two-part episode, and then it would simply reset back to square 1 at the end of the following week. I craved continuity, piecing together episodes in my head and a personal fanon (before I knew of the term) in the way a child only could. That’s why it was all the more amazing whenever a show would tease the viewer with bits of continuity.

King Mondo directly confronting the Zeo Power Rangers impressed me. So was finding out that one of Grimlord’s lieutenants was the father of the primary VR Trooper. But nothing comes to mind more than Conan the Adventurer.

Conan the Adventurer was a child-friendly version of Conan the Barbarian where Conan and friends sent their enemies “to another dimension” before Saban decided to bestow that phrase upon its Dragon Ball Z dub. And while Conan met his friends across the land and sea, and they didn’t go away after an episode, Conan never seemed to get any closer to reversing the spell of living stone cast upon his family by the evil Wrath-Amon, the very impetus of his quest. Imagine my surprise one morning(no really, do it!) when I saw Conan and his allies directly fighting not only Wrath-Amon but his lord and master Set, the big final boss master of the series. Not only that, Conan actually managed to soundly defeat both of them and even finally save his family. To actually have a satisfying conclusion to a cartoon adventure, it was such a rare sight that the memory stuck with me, as you might have noticed) even if the show was actually not that great.

But even if a show had no sense of continuity or concept of lasting consequences, I wanted there to be some. It wasn’t what I would call a burning desire, but the shows which gave me a taste of what continuity could add to a story, and the shows without continuity which simply made me want it more, I think it’s definitely one of the many factors that got me into anime.