Ninja Robots summer flashback: Revisit the wildest childhood anime memories you would never admit

I was seven, when I first started watching Ninja Robots. It was completely different from what I had seen before, which was, the jovial Tom and Jerry, Fred Flintstones and Jetsons. I had my taste of action with Swat Kats, but Ninja Robots was something else. It was robots, people, and there was a princess involved too, who, was always in trouble (Forgive me, I was only seven, unaware of the world and loved the idea of damsels in distress, what did I know?)

But Ninja Robots was basically a child's soapy melodrama, complete with love triangles, action-packed sequences, and that unforgettable opening theme—honestly, very few songs take me straight back to childhood like the Ninja Robots theme (maybe Johnny Quest).

The storyline was quite simple: Earthlings, Joe, Jenny and Mike, who have been living on Mars for a while now and dream of returning to Earth. The story begins when they are running from Martian cops when they crash, literally, —into a spaceship under robot attack. Joe sneaks aboard and meets some seriously stylish aliens: the stunning Princess Rowena, her ethereal sidekick Jade, and a broody young General Icelander. The truth is, all us seven-year-olds were in love with Icelander. Sigh.

Anyway, things go sideways fast. Robots everywhere. Joe hides in what he thinks is glowing scrap metal—spoiler: it’s a ninja robot named Black Lion. Cue epic robot battle, ninja robot saviour Cybertron shows up, and suddenly Joe’s got a mechanical lion friend obliterating the evil people.

The battle scenes are, admittedly still fun to watch. But oh my, the number of times Joe lands in trouble or is ‘cornered’ by robots, believed to be dead, or Rowena gets kidnapped, or just generally faints away because everything is too much for her to handle. What a vibe. That graceful hairstyle too.

Sure, some robot sequences are campy, some dialogue cringe—but it’s still maddening fun. It was before my Naruto days and remains one of my earliest obsessions. Children rushing home from school to watch, debating Joe’s bizarre antics, and swooning over the cool robot suits—those were the moments.

And Icelander. Whew.

 So, if you ever have a desire to revisit your childhood self, maybe try Ninja Robots. If you've already watched it in childhood but suppressed the memory of it, oh go back to it, what do you have to lose?