I'm a huge Mysterious Cities of Gold fan and had heard that it was part inspired by a series called Future Boy Conan. I'd never seen this series before, as it was never shown in the UK to my knowledge, but had heard that it was definitely worth a watch. When a Blu-ray was released, I jumped on it and ordered it on release day. However, it sat in my pile of shame for over a year until I finally got around to it earlier this month.
Even though the series is old and I have no personal attachment to it, I hoped that I was nuanced enough to overlook its nearly 50 plus year old production values in order to appreciate what many others saw in as it's inherent good qualities. I can honestly say that, after its 11 hour runtime, I was very impressed.
The show starts off very quickly, with a prologue about Earth being destroyed by man's folly in 2008 by using ultra-magnetic weapons that destabilised the Earth's poles, creating natural disaster and breaking up the landmasses.
Fast forward a few decades and one of the scientists, now an old man, takes care of a boy he helped raise on the island. When the boy, Conan, find a mysterious girl, Lana, washed up on their shore they help get her back to health.
When a military force from Industria take her and kill the old man, the boy travels across the world to rescue her. What follows is a heartfelt and adventurous tale of friendship, resilience and heart as Conan attempts to rescue Lana and finds out about the wider world.
After Lana is rescued, Conan and Jimsy get to experience life in her village of High Harbor. They get to understand what it is to be part of a community and the difficulties that arise during difficult times in a close community. The socio-political conversation is thoughtful as the people fight back against Industria.
After a tsunami nearly devastates High Harbor, Conan decides to go to Industria to help the people there after the consequences of the giant wave. His selflessness and empathy, even for those who want to harm him, is heartening to see and a good message for people of all ages to follow. I won't spoil the ending but the last 3 episodes are some of the most intense and we'll-paced episodes of any serial ever.
There are a lot of aspects of the show that probably wouldn't be allowed on children's TV nowadays, like underage drinking, smoking and physical abuse where the kids are smacked on the rump with planks and beaten up. This definitely IS your dad's animation. I haven't clutched my pearls this hard since Upin and Ipin were smacked across the face for lying! Additionally, there's difficult stuff to cover like branding, slavery and imperialism but it's all dealt with pretty sympathetically and no-one is presented as irredeemable. We get an insight into the imperial powers intentions through the actions of Monsley, a General of sorts who carry out most of Industria's orders without question. When we gain a flashback as to her origin story it offers insight into her motivation. Characters are well fleshed out and we understand them even if we don’t agree with them or their actions.
The animation, under the direction of the legendary future Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki, is brilliant and consistent throughout. The backgrounds are extremely detailed and create a believable world. The character designs are superb and have a timeless quality, belying it's age whilst the pacing is excellent throughout. The High Harbor episodes, where the characters get a taste of island life offers insight into society post-catastrophe, is thankfully well done. They do not overstay their welcome, unlike those in Nadia: Secret of Blue Water where island episodes killed the pacing for several episodes.
The Blu-ray transfer is excellent as the colours really pop and the animation is crystal clear with little to no blurring, colour bleeding, fuzz, scratching, artefacting or pop in. It's an excellent way to presents the show in the best possible way and I can see why the show is so highly regarded. In the West we had cheaply animated children's shows but rarely did they have the lavish production costs, focus on character and story that this has. The only thing that came close would be the Disney movies but a 26 part TV animated series aimed at kids didn't really take off until the 80s when we had DIC produced shows like Ulysses 31, Belle and Sabastian and MCOG as well as BRB’sWillie Fogg and Dogtanian.
Future Boy Conan is a remarkable piece of work and, whilst not the rosetta stone for many series, it is a landmark production that obviously affected the animation industry going forward. It is well worth your time!
LINK- Mysterious Cities of Gold Season 3 (English Dub) -Complete Series Review
LINK: Japan: My Journey to the East
LINK- The Last Guardian- Video Games As Art
LINK- Shadow of the Colossus- Book Review
LINK: Manga Exhibition at the British Museum
LINK- The Midnight Library and the Idea That You Can’t Go Home Again
LINK- The Transportive Nature of Objects (And the Power of Mini Consoles)