Hamtaro

From Animepedia

Hamtaro (とっとこハム太郎, Tottoko Hamutarou) is an anime about the adventures of a hamster named Hamtaro and his hamster friends. Tottoko Hamutarou first started out as a children's picture book, written and drawn by its creator Ritsuko Kawai. Ritsuko Kawai eventally began on a Tottoko Hamutarou manga which has been serialized in Shogaku Ni Nensei, a Japanese magazine published by Shogakukan.

The series was eventally produced into an anime, and aired on TV Tokyo from July 7, 2000 until the series' conclusion in March 31, 2006. By it's end, Tottoko Hamutarou had about 224 TV episodes, a couple of OVAs and four movies.

As of April 5, 2006, Tottoko Hamutarou was able to 'continue' on in a seperate anime produced by a different company. The five-minute series is known as Tottoko Hamutaro: Norisuta Hai!.

Overview

Hamtaro is about a golden hamster named Hamtaro whom moves with his owner, Laura Haruna and her family, to a new neighbourhood. Hamtaro then finds a way to escape his hamster cage and safety of his family's house, and already starts to meet various other hamsters. In the second episode, Hamtaro and some of his hamster friends decide to form a club just for Ham-Hams (Hamuchans in the original). From there, Hamtaro and his friends share many adventures. The genre of this anime could be considered to be a "Slice of Life", as there is really no actual plot. Nearly all the episodes hold a life lesson at the end, mostly things like being nice, saying sorry, keeping promises etc.