Smiley the Smiler

When I was a child in the 50s or 60s, there was a Japanese cartoon (or anime, as many call it) that often went on Saturday mornings that I used to watch called "Smiley the Smiler", and speaking of that show, it used to scare the living crap outta me, and it often gave me nightmares, despite the fact that it was a kids show. It was about a young clown girl named Smiley, who wanted to be the best clown in the circus. But, whenever things went bad during her performing stunts, she often was filled with jealousy and envy and even killing her court jester mum Ismael and depressed kitten Koneko.

Smiley wore an orange-and-yellow sailor uniform similar to those school uniforms wore by girls you see in Japan, Korea and China. She also wore a mask for some reason, and that was because she wanted to hide her identity as being a complete psycho. So, whenever she was furious, her mask went off to reveal her anxiety-inducing, nightmarish face. She also possessed a pendulum called the "Happy String", which was used to hypnotise people into becoming different things during her circus performances.

Smiley the Smiler also had a repetitive, catchy song that would be stuck in your head for quite a while. However, when my dad found out that I was watching such a creepy show with blood splattering around the circus, he began to destroy the TV and my mum throwing it out of the window, so I never saw that show again and forgot about its existence. Two decades later, when I moved from Tokyo to Budapest where I was living in an apartment, I tried to remember the name of the anime, but it didn't work. I then drew a picture of the character since I remembered how she looked like. As later I drew the mask, I remembered the name of the show as well starting with "Smiley". Spending a restless and irritated afternoon by trying to remember a weird but creative series, I quickly fell asleep after seeing the purple sky.

While I was sleeping, I suddenly heard a familiar circus clown song, and when I woke up after it, I saw a girl with a smiley face mask staring deeply into my eyes as she wanted to take my soul. I was frightened to see that my childhood fear was back again after decades of forgetfulness. It was Smiley, and she said something like this: "You didn't watch my show anymore." I understood what she meant by that, but when her mask fell off, it was pure nightmare fuel.

I tried running away from that scary-ass clown, but due to the fact that the sky was pitch black, I was unable to see anything until I crashed into some wall. I turned around to see Smiley saying: "Hey kids, wanna see a magic trick?" I screamed in horror to see that Joker-like face. Then, I realised that it was all just a hallucination, and I admitted that it was simply Smiley trying to eat my human flesh.

This was when I knew that Smiley the Smiler was a show that I forgot about forever, and I felt sorry for her that she just wanted to be my friend. I cried when I found out that it was all just a hallucination.

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