Mirai Shounen Conan! OMG!!!
Ever since the anime "Kuroshitsuji" concluded, my daughter and I didn't have a regular show to catch and we were feeling a little bummed about it. I looked at the archives at anilinkz.com and .... Behold!!!! A gem in anime history catches my eyes! "Future Boy Conan" -- Mirai Shounen Conan! OMG!!! A Hayao Miyazaki adaptation of the novel by Alexander Kay "The Incredible Tide". Originally aired from April to October of 1978 on NHK (the commercial-free, government owned, fee-charging TV channel, known for high quality educational programming, news, serial dramas... and this ground-breaking animated series), this, by far, was my favorite anime series of my youth. I never missed a single episode.
I told my daughter, "Hey, this is mommy's favorite when she was your age!", and she happily agreed to sit along with me to check out the first episode. Anime has come a long way in the 30 years since this series aired, so I was a bit worried that she might find it lacking in some ways, but... Miyazaki's touch is clearly seen and felt in this gem of anime classic that it stands up well even today in quality. As Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli movies have proven popular through the years, the character design in this series is timeless. And I adore the drawing style! This is vintage Miyazaki. ^_^
The soundtrack is probably the only thing that dates the series with very seriously rendered, grown-up vocals for the opening and ending themes. Oddly enough, I had completely forgotten about the opening theme, but could sing right along the ending theme (Kind of scary!)...lol
If you're a fan of Miyazaki and haven't checked out this series, I highly recommend it. Sure, Miyazaki has gained wider audience in North America since the Disney studio acquired the distribution rights to his movies, but the real gems of his movie making, -- at least, to us, Japanese fans of his movies -- are found in the lesser known titles before "Spirited Away". And if you're going to watch his movies, don't watch the lousy English-dubbed versions by Disney. They lose so much in translation and at the hands of American directors who show very little respect to the idea of keeping things close to the original by insisting on asserting their will by liberally "interpreting" small but significant details and generally ruining them all for us. For example, "My Neighbor Totoro" was originally released in US under Fox with their version of English dub which was far superior to the re-release by Disney a decade later. Disney is guilty of always falling for the gimmick of "starring" popular actors of the moment, rather than being true to the voice quality and using real, trained voice actors. Every effort has failed and they still continued to employ this tactic. I'm sad to say that gone are the days when Disney name signified quality family entertainment. Corporate America has ruined it all...