Growing up, we didn't have cable TV at home (before 2000), so I was limited to the few channels we got with our antenna. One of those was DD2, a state-run channel. They had an amazing lineup of cartoons in their afternoon block, with shows like He-Man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Batman, Scooby-Doo, Superman, Defenders of the Earth, SilverHawks, Transformers, and more. I looked forward to it every day. And on Saturdays, they aired an extra bunch of cartoons and TV shows for kids.

That's where I first discovered Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad (an adaptation of Gridman the Hyper Agent), and it quickly became my obsession. I loved everything about it - the cool cyber setting, the giant mecha battles, Sam transforming into Servo. It was unlike anything else I had seen on TV at that time. While all the other kids were into Power Rangers (they aired that also), Syber-Squad was my favorite.

I watched it every Saturday. For that half hour, I was transported to the digital world as I cheered Sam and the gang on in their fight against Kilokahn (Kilometric Knowledge-base Animate Human Nullity) and his virus monsters.

Kilokahn from Super Human Samurai Syber-Squad

The cyber-mecha battles had me on the edge of my seat. I couldn't wait to talk about it with my friends at school the next Monday when it was over.

All these years later, I still have vivid memories of countless Saturday afternoons curled up watching Syber-Squad. It was probably one of the first TV shows that captured my attention as a kid.