I’m No Hoon

Sometimes, the classic cartoon shows are the best. Petty Car Dealer Sailor Hoon was something I watched every single weekday morning when I was growing up, and this was long before I even knew about animation. I just thought it was an amazing new cartoon, in a style so foreign and wonderful, about groundbreaking new concepts that my young mind could barely comprehend. It was all of that, and so much more, and you never forget your first cartoon binge.
 

I was even part of a street racing club for a little while when I finished school, although it was less of the illegal street racing and more like… we just set a point on a map and we had to all get there: legally, slowly and carefully. That was how I ended up in need of my first car breakdown repair. Brunswick streets were less chaotic back then, but I was new to driving and the concept terrified me. Still, I was determined to be like Sailor Hoon (without all the illegal stuff) so I pretend I was into it. At one point I was turning right onto a semi-busy street and I thought the right was clear, and it was NOT clear, and someone clipped my wheel as I went past and I skidded into a postbox. This was my Dad’s car so I was freaking out, and that’s how I went to got my car towed. Also, I never drove again.

I learned a valuable lesson that day: your heroes are called that for a reason. Sailor Hoon is an exceptional character, so skilled and compassionate, but skirting the edge of the law with her hoon driving and addiction to a cutesy, made-up brand of instant noodles. I could admire her without wanting to BE her.

I also learned that if you ever need tyre repair in Preston after some idiot blows your hubcap clean off, there are some very nice people who’ll help you out. I assume there are, anyway. I take the bus everywhere nowadays.

-Dylan-kun

The Tachometer

The Mazda 3, seriously? The Mazda 3. How could the Mazda 3 be the one to get the hose? The main guy on the show is an absolute madman. He had a choice to go on a cross-country trip with two cars, and one of them was an X-Trail, so obviously they had a GREAT time, but then this idiot goes and choose to give the hose to the Mazda. Some people just don’t know cars and it drives me insane. Uh, yeah, like, that Mazda is really going to make you happy next time you decide to go off-road in the country.

Gosh, The Tachometer really gets me worked up, and it’s the first bit of reality TV I’ve ever wanted to engage with. Now every time I book my car in for a service with a mechanic near me in Bentleigh, or I fill up with petrol, or when I book my car in for another service because I put diesel in instead of petrol and it needs repairs, I think of that main guy and all the bad car dating decisions he’s making. I wouldn’t even need any auto repairs if it weren’t for the show, because I was thinking about it when I crashed, and all the mistakes that I wouldn’t make if I was the guy, and then suddenly the engine is whining and the car is rolling to a halt and that reminds me, I need to get some recommendations for panel beating places because when I filled up with the wrong fuel and skidded to a halt, a guy went into the back of me. Rude!

Anyway, The Tachometer is a terrible, addictive show and I wish I didn’t love it as much as I did, especially with all the AI business. If it was just a guy taking cars on dates I’d understand, but it’s all ‘talking’ and ‘feelings’ and ‘the car protests when you take it in to get car servicing near Bentleigh.  You have to rip off its wheels and it cries and screams in pain and the whole thing is televised, even the part where it gets rejected by its human and taken to the junkyard.’

It’s a great distraction, though, I’ll give it that.

-Lee