Ah, first episode time again...
Hai! Step Jun is the story of Jun the gadgeteer girl genius, who along with her robot sidekick Kichinosuke -- and eventual other robot sidekick Yukinojo -- gets embroiled in madcap adventures while she attempts to win the heart of Zero, the cool biker bad boy in her class. (At least, for the first half of the series... but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.)
The show is a glorious slice of '80s cheese that has mostly been ignored in the English speaking world, apart from animation scholars who know of it only because it began airing in the 8:30 Sunday time slot on TV Asahi that has been dominated by Toei Animation since the early 80s. The show did air in several European countries, however, under the following titles: Vas-y Julie! (France), Juny Peperina Inventatutto (Italy), Los Inventos de Eva (Spain), and Step Jun (Greece).
Let me address the big elephant in the room: despite appearances, the main human characters are all 14 and in the 3rd year of middle school. This includes Jun, who looks like a toddler, and Zero, who looks like he should be in college. Indeed, many of the European adaptations made it so that Jun is actually a precocious grade skipper. (So, uh, that kind of makes the romantic tension between Jun and Zero hit a tad bit different.) Anyway, feel free to adjust your interest in watching this based on that information.
The video was taken from the following release (https://nyaa.si/view/885596). From what I've seen, not too many people are happy with this version, and complain that it has quite a bit of noise. However, I don't have access to the DVDs to make another attempt, nor do I know enough about encoding to make another attempt worthwhile.
Episode 1 - The Heartful Mechanic Girl! (March 10, 1985)
Jun finishes creating her robot sidekick Kichinosuke. But when he and Zero get off on the wrong foot, Jun has her work cut out her in defusing the situation.
%20086%20(1080p).mkv_20221009_140536.732.jpg)
