The 1990s and early 2000s were a wild time to be an anime fan in the western part of the world. While anime was steadily gaining popularity, fans weren’t exactly spoiled for choice, and, for the most part, many of the series that did manage to snag daytime broadcast blocks were dubbed in such a way that replaced many names and references to things that producers believed would be more in line with western culture.
It was an interesting time to jump into fandom spaces, and despite many of these older adaptations being made into memes due to rampant content cuts and censorship from this era, many of these anime served as the gateway for the medium becoming as popular as it is today. Fox Kids, later rebranded as FoxBox and then 4Kids TV, was one of the biggest programming blocks that allowed for this push, grabbing up some of the most popular budding franchises at the time – especially popular series that had major merchandising tie-ins.
1) Medabots
Perhaps one of the more niche anime that aired in the US in the 2000s, Medabots shared many similarities to franchises like Pokemon and Digimon in that it follows a story focused on showing off the bond between humans and a type of collectible creature that fights alongside them. Interestingly, Medabots, instead of focusing on animal-like creatures, focuses on small robots called Medabots, whose owners pit them against one another in Robattles.
The main character of the anime, Ikki Tenryo, is too poor to afford to by a Medabot, but manages to scrape enough together to buy an outdated model and somehow gets his hands on a rare medal that not only gives the newly dubbed Metabee a nasty attitude, but makes him remarkably powerful.
2) Mew Mew Power
It’s hard to go wrong with magical girl anime, and Fox Kids managed to have some of the most iconic shojo series on their content block – one of which being the colorfully adorable Tokyo Mew Mew. Based on the original manga by Mia Ikumi and Reiko Yoshida, Tokyo Mew Mew is centered on Ichigo Momomiya, an average girl living in Tokyo who, after an earthquake, becomes covered in a magical light and fuses with a cat, causing her to gain magical powers.
Ichigo eventually meets other girls whose DNA has been fused with different animals and learns that she must fight against aliens known as Chimera Animas using her new form. Dubbing themselves the Mew Mews, the core cast of Tokyo Mew Mew have incredibly well-written personalities and awesome powers that have made the series a certified staple among fans of the magical girl genre.
3) Kirby: Right Back at Ya!
Based on the iconic Nintendo character, Kirby: Right Back at Ya! takes place on Popstar, a colorful planet that Kirby lands on before finding himself tasked with facing off against the evil emperor Nightmare while constantly dodging King Dedede and Escargoon. The series had a solid 100-episode run, and balances short episodic arcs with an overarching plot blended with iconic references to the video games with original characters and locations tied in to keep things interesting.
Kirby’s characterization in the series is just as one would expect – he’s absolutely adorable, with a gluttonous appetite and a keen battle sense that lets him take on just about any threat that Nightmare and Dedede send his way.
4) Yu-Gi-Oh!
One of the most iconic classic anime franchises of all time, Yu-Gi-Oh! took the world by storm when it originally debuted in Shonen Jump in 1996 before being adapted into an anime shortly after chronicling the adventures of Yugi, a teenager who solves a mysterious artifact called the Millennium Puzzle and becomes the host for a competitive alter ego. The King of Games within the Puzzle eventually makes Yugi an absolute monster at Duel Monsters, a fictional, competitive card game in the iconic later phase of the manga, with high stakes and equally eccentric players.
Fox Kids truly hit the jackpot with Yu-Gi-Oh!, as the series not only ran for well over 200-episodes, but also would go on to become one of the highest grossing franchises of all time. The popularity of the trading card game featured in the anime would later lead it to receive its very own, real life TCG that’s still receiving new sets and printing today.
5) Escaflowne
One of Studio Sunrise’s biggest sleeper hits, The VIsion of Escaflowne aired on Fox Kids released in 2000, and while heavily edited and modified from the original anime, still managed to deliver a stellar mech fantasy. Of course, many of these cuts do heavily alter the series’ flow, with one of the most egregious examples of Fox Kids’ version of the anime completely cutting Episode 1 from its televised run in the US, and cutting in multiple flashback sequences to make up for other scenes being removed.
In its unaltered state, The Vision of Escaflowne is a fantasy isekai series that follows Hitomi Kanzaki, who is transported to the fantastical world of Gaea, or the Mystic Moon, that was created from the hopes and wishes of the people of Atlantis. As Hitomi travels and adventures through Gaea, she begins to learn of some of the world’s greater conflicts, including an ongoing struggle between the Zaibach Empire and the surrounding countries. The anime also, in usual Sunrise fashion, finds a way to tie-in mechs, giving it a unique blend of action and high fantasy akin to other classics like Inuyasha.
6) Digimon
One of Pokemon‘s few true rivals, Digimon: Digital Monsters was a hallmark anime featured on Fox Kids’ programming block that kids from the ’90s and 2000s likely have a strong nostalgia-fueled attachment to. True to its name, Digimon follows a group of children being transported into a digital world inhabited by Digimon – creatures capable of temporary evolutions to make them more powerful. Luckily for the main group, each of them have their own Digimon to act as their friend and guardian while navigating the strange new Digital World.
They eventually discover that the group of them are “DigiDestined”, meaning that they’ve been chosen to save the Digital World from a mysterious, prophesied threat. Constantly being chased by evil Devimon, the DigiDestined have to bond swiftly to their new digital companions to be able to effectively fight back at the constant threats thrown their way. Spawning multiple video and trading card games, as well as multiple animated sequel, Digimon is a true staple of the era that paved the way for anime to become mainstream in the West.
7) Sailor Moon
Perhaps the most iconic shojo series on Fox Kids, Sailor Moon is the quintessential magical girl series from the ’90s. Focused on the very young, very clumsy Usagi Tsukino (Serena in the Fox Kids’ dub of the series) who meets a magical cat named Luna who gives her the ability to transform into a powerful magical girl in hopes that she can track down the battling the forces of the Dark Kingdom and track down the lost moon princess. Of course, Usagi later learns that she is the lost moon princess, and alongside the other Sailor Scouts, the girls fight back against Queen Beryl and her forces.
While the original anime strays from the source material at times, there’s truly no better time capsule to point to from this era of anime than Sailor Moon. The series has everything from the bright, city pop aesthetic to many tropes that would become staples in anime for decades to come.
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