Life and Death of an Icon

It feels a bit funny, icons that seemed immortal during my younger years now feeble and old, or dead. For my generation, Michael Jackson for example seemed ageless. My nickname was taken from a song that he and his siblings sang back in the late seventies, and every kid back then was familiar more or less with the 'moonwalk'. Then there's former president Cory Aquino who in 1986 was destined for the history books. We grew up having to listen to 'Reagan-omics' on the news and watched Lino Brocka films whenever I helped my mom carry stuff from the wet market.

Death or illness seems like a byword when you become an adult. But can you remember the first time that you were shocked with news of the death of a significant figure in history? I've been thinking back to that time and I guess that person for me was Annie.

Who is Annie? I don't know either. But I never failed to go straight home from school to watch her show. She played the sidekick of Alex, who transformed through cosmic powers into Shaider, battling overgrown monsters sent by aliens out to conquer Earth (Or Japan, these aliens always sent their monsters to Japan, exclusively to Alex's hometown). Now I'm sure Annie suddenly feels all too familiar.

Well actually, I'm not sure if she's dead. Back in elementary school, the rumor that Annie was dead came as a shock to all those pre-teen boys who always hurriedly came home to see if they could catch a short glimpse of Annie's underwear. The initial reaction? That we wouldn't be able to watch 'Shaider', nor Annie's underpanties again. That would be something more earth shattering than having alien monsters taking over the planet! So that day we all ran back to our living rooms and were relieved to find Annie still jumping over the cameras, doing somersaults and revealing her yellow or brown panties for all little boys to see. She would go on assisting Alex in their adventures for a few more years before the show went off the air entirely.

Then, the mysterious Annie became resurrected in high school, this time on the pages of a Japanese girly magazine. Of course no one in our class could read Nippongo, so we didn't really know if she was the famous sidekick. What mattered was that she was the spitting image of Annie, and that she did not have anything on. By the way, this isn't proof that Annie lives, it was an old magazine, years old. Probably around the time after the Shaider series was shot.

Fast forward to today, specifically 5 minutes ago. Of course I googled Annie. Found out she is a J-porn actress, still very much alive, yippee! Of course, the challenge of having to watch Shaider for a glimpse of her underwear is gone if and when I do get hold of any of her recent porn flicks. Sadly though, Alex is dead. Apparently, liver cancer did him in. Wonder who's taking care of the monsters now.

Yes, icons will die eventually, but the important thing is that we always remember them for what they did and what they stood up for. I know I'll always keep Annie in my mind. Time Space Warp, ngayon din!

Postscript:

So Zaido was descended from Shaider? Interesting...