Mysterious Cities Of Gold
Daniel:
I feel a bit strange reviewing this series on an anime page, seeing as it's not fully anime. The series is a French/Japanese co-production that was released in 1982/83, and as a result, is not really fully anime at all. One of the most striking differences between this and most anime is its lack of originality- Mysterious Cities of Gold is based on a book, and very little artistic licence was shown. The French don't like to take risks with what they release, I don't think, so when treading on the relatively new (for them) territory of anime, they preferred the security of the story having a plot that had already sold.
This 39 episode long series, for all its contrived nature, is not all that bad, though. It keeps up a good pace throughout, it's never absurdly silly, and, most importantly, it's not particularly boring. The series is fairly well drawn, and has been translated into a relatively large number of languages making it a much more accessible series than most for anime fans who speak no Japanese. It's also not the least bit culturally Japanese, being heavily derived from a very un-Japanese book.
Personally, I take issue with all of the Atlantis/Lemuria ancient hi-tech nonsense, but some people really go for such things. UncleJ, for instance, went so far as to call this series 'educational' and say 'it increases children's interest in foreign cultures and incourages them to learn more about South America and Spanish history'. Maybe... but I don't think so. I would say that many people might find this 'educational', but that's certainly not its primary purpose and I trully wonder how 'educational' it really is, or how many people watch anime to get educated about conquistadores in South America and a very few local tribes, some of which, such as the Olmeks, are portrayed in a very negative light.
In general, I would say that while some people worship this film, I do not count myself among them, and I see it as very low-end on the anime scale. It's vaguely watchable, though. Recommended for those who don't like the fact that anime is 'so Japanese'!!
Alon:
Even after ten years, I still can't take the opening theme out of my head... ^_^ . The Mesterious Cities Of Gold was one of my favorate shows when I was little. I remember so little of it, that I can't really write about it, because I don't know if it's really good, or is it the nostalgia speaking. As far as I can remember it, it was a really cool advanture series for children.
Why can't channel 1 rerun it?
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