Hamtaro Lost Episode

You may know about the Hamtaro anime. It's about a hamster named Hamtaro (Hamutaro) who lives with his owner Laura (Hiroko), and when Laura/Hiroko goes away, Hamtaro escapes from his cage and goes to the Ham-Ham Clubhouse and meets up with the Ham-Hams, and have fun little adventures. We never got past 105 episodes, but Japan got 296 episodes. But did you know that there was an extra episode in Japan that was aired only once and never again? I have info about this lost episode. Apparently it was about Hamtaro being super depressed. It was made around 2003-2004. A friend in Japan was lucky enough to actually record it on VHS, and he gave me it. I'll give you the details. I know Japanese, so I will translate it. The intro plays like normal, so does the title card. The title of this episode translated is, Very Sad Hamtaro. Laura screams and cries at the beginning. "Ahhh! I hate school! I hate school!" Hamtaro looks confused and worried. "Why is Laura so upset? She usually likes school, nanoda..." Laura looks at her test, and a tear lands on it. "I studied these, lesson to lesson, so why did I fail? WHY?" Hamtaro holds on the bars of his cage and makes noise, a LOT of noise. Laura gets very mad. "SHUT UP! Shut up you dumb, stupid, idiotic hamster! I hate you, and I hope you die or drown or burn... or.... or something!" Hamtaro gets tears in his eyes. Laura runs out of her room and SLAMS the door. Hamtaro gets super sad. "Why did Laura shout at me?' He rests a little, still looking sad. He opens the door of his cage and goes to the Clubhouse. "Hey everyone... what's going...on?" All the Ham-Hams look worried about Hamtaro. Bijou (Ribon-chan) looks especially worried. "Hamtaro! Are you sick, dechuwa?" Hamtaro looked sleepy and depressed. "Everyone.... I am very depressed. Laura yelled at me, and I have a huge headache, and I am sleepy." Oxnard (Koushi-kun) lended him his lucky sunflower seed. 'Hamtaro... if you want, you can have my lucky sunflower seed... I had it for a long time, but it's okay. Take it." Hamtaro looks at the sunflower seed. It looked aged and a little dirty. "No thanks, nanoda..." Pashmina (Mafura-chan) lended Hamtaro her pink scarf. "Here, have my scarf. It will keep you warm." The scarf did look warm, but again, Hamtaro refused. Cappy (Kaburu-kun) offered his hat. Refused. Penelope (Chibimaru-chan) offered the yellow blanket around her. Refused again. The Ham-Hams did not know what to do, but Howdy (Maido-kun) did know! "What do you call a cross between an octopus and a cat? Nekoyaki!" (This is a word joke. Takoyaki is a Japanese food. Tako means octopus. Neko means cat. Put neko in place of tako, and that's the joke.) The Ham-Hams look bored as usually, because Howdy's jokes are not funny. Of course, Hamtaro didn't look amused either. Now the Ham-Hams really didn't know what to do. Hamtaro sluggishly walked outside, and he found a giant gun. He wanted to shoot himself. The Ham-Hams went outside and saw Hamtaro holding the giant gun. Boss (Taisho-kun) looked horrified! "Hamtaro! Don't!" Hamtaro dropped the huge gun. He ran home. The Ham-Hams were worried, but went back inside the Clubhouse. Hamtaro got home, greeted by Brandy (Don-chan), the dog. He got into Laura's room and scurried back into his cage. Laura looked depressed too, but she wrote in her notebook. "I got a very bad grade on my test today, even though I studied very hard. I shouldn't have yelled at Hamtaro earlier, he looks very sad. But Mom made me feel better by giving me apple slices. And I do feel better!" Laura is too tired to talk to Hamtaro, so she just goes to bed. So does Hamtaro.

Origin of Episode

An employee of TMS, the animation studio of Hamtaro, got depressed after his son died in a car crash, and to show it, he made this very episode, and it is shorter than most Hamtaro episodes, meaning maybe he got too sad.

How it Was Found

Some Japanese teenagers were looking in a dumpster and found this episode. They knew my friend, so they game it to him and then he gave it to me. It was very dusty and dirty, but I washed it carefully.