Captain Future, or rather "Capitaine Flam" was one of the First wave of Mangas to be broadcasted in France in the late seventies, along with "Goldorak" and "Albator". It was dubbed in French, and, now I've seen most of it again, I realise th e dubbing and translation are pretty poor, but at the time it didn't matter much. The scientific explanations, in general, although probably sound, were completely screwed-up in french. And why oh why rename the Comet "Cyberlab" ??? Based on Stories by Ed Hamilton, one of the greatest space-opera authors ever, Captain Future already stood out at the time of its release because of its pretty good writing standards. Each story was developed over four 25-minute episodes, with a few very nice cliffhangers at the end of episodes. Design is okay, character development is too, though, well, they very much suit japanese cultural patterns. The Captain's crass male chauvinism, especially, is barely bearable nowadays, as is the insistence of Joann in getting abducted by the baddies in every story, so Curtiiiis can come save her, but, well, those were the days...
As mentioned by other reviewers already, one of the series main assets is the incidental music, splendidly groovy and moody japanese jazz-rock, which gives a timeless feeling to the lot, Sad thing is, in the french dubbed version, the original score is drowned under the daft Jean-Jacques Debout title song (that guy is french singer Chantal Goya's husband, and he wrote most of her brain-dead children's songs) or its instrumental version, although sometimes you can still ear the original score poking in underneath. Bugger. Well, the title song is so corny it's actually cult as well in France...
The lot, that is 13 stories of each 4 episodes (we're talking about 22 hours), has been re-released on DVD in France. Sadly only in dubbed version, and well, the transfer is pretty cheap, but if you can get it as 7 DVD box set, it's not really an expensive one. Besides, you can watch all episodes of every story in a row without having to suffer those annoying titles in-between... or wait one week to know what happens next, the way we had to 20 years or so ago.
Of course, people who've seen it as kids will love seeing the lot again, but I think that , despite its shortcomings, the series could appeal to mainstream science fiction fans too... though purely french cartoon SF series "Il était une fois l'espace" is probably even better in the script department, and more suitable for european kids too !
