Conan, le fils du futur

How I wish I was a child seeing Conan, if not to enjoy without knowledge of Hayao Miyazaki, but to have been able to go to school and talk about it with all my friends. It would have been my favourite show. Instead I've made do watching older, it's excellent though.

To explain the plot, the world has been partially destroyed by man through use of nuclear weapons, tilting the world on its axis, thus sinking most of the land and destroying civilisation as we know it. 30 years later the few survivors are on living on a small island, Conan an 11 year old boy lives with his grandfather peacefully, until a girl washes up on the beach. It would be criminal to go much further since one of the best features of 'Conan' is its storytelling, and at 26 episodes it can take it's time.

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki with some help from Isao Takahata, Conan displays many of the traits of a Ghibli movie, best described and a cross between 'Laputa: Castle in the Sky' and 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind', both in plot and design. It could be said that these films improved and expanded on the ideas in Conan which could be taken that Conan isn't worthwhile, but it's more like Conan is an opportunity to see 13hrs of Miyazaki doing what he does so well.

Personally it's very difficult to review Conan, I know I love it, but there's so much to write. The plot is pretty complex, its twists and turns are genuinely surprising. The characters are great, since it's early Miyazaki there's a lot of slapstick, much in the vein of Miyazaki's Lupin III movie, the art direction is certainly of lower quality than his later offerings, but it was his directorial debut. Conan is dated in terms of animation, but again like in Lupin the characters are simplified, thus allowing animation to go smoothly, plus the backgrounds are beautiful, the ideas flowing, the design of the main boat is cleverly an upside down boat adapted to sail, at least I think it is! Its a few years before Joe Hisaishi is working with Miyazaki, so the music is less grand, but sweet and catchy.

Conan is a fantastic, while dated is as good a show a child or adult could watch today, plus another excellent Miyazaki project for the converted. I really can't praise Conan enough!

This is one of the first Miyazaki's. He made it in 1978. Was originally released in Italian then dubbed to Japanese. Future boy Conan is a story about a boy and his grand father who were the only survivors of the third world war. Apparently, there were more survivors who did not learn the lesson of preserving life. The anime is not about super beings or the supernatural. It is about ordinary people with ordinary powers driven by pure feelings of goodwill and platonic love. Miyazaki engraved his name in history and in the heart of generations to come with this anime. He gave life to those characters who live in our heart as people we know and learn from. The story line is superb. The characters are lovely. The drawing is magnificent for a 1978 anime. What else are you waiting for....don't miss this anime.

Highly dramatic and engaging, this TV series was near perfect and shows Miyazaki's talents for the first time he directed something. Interestingly, Miyazaki's characters that he developed in this TV series served as prototypes for the films he made. Indeed, this TV series is actually one 26 episode long film with many subplots that constitute each of the episodes.

Also, it is impressively dramatic considering it was a TV series marketed for children. The Japanese animated TV series were always much more dramatic and complex than American animated TV series, but in the 1970's anime it was still in its early stages and wasn't as well developed as it became in the 1980's, when it's range expanded to all demographic groups.

An excellent TV series, indeed, one of the most powerful ever made. Yes, I said powerful for an animated TV series from the 1970's, because it is.

I would say its the best "animated anything" of all time, but to avoid excessive hyperbole I reluctantly confine myself to "Japanese anime TV series". This is one of Hayao Miyazaki's earlier projects (by no means earliest), and yet it is his best. The colors are not as rich, the animation not as fluid as in his later works but its still his best. Its a 1970's anime made with 1970s techniques, yet you could not want it any other way. The character's drawing is simple by later standards, monotone faces, quite flat, but they are unforgettable and their visual "flatness" only emphasizes their depth of character. The scenery despite the limitations of technology is simply beautiful. All in all, what Miyazaki achieved with this series is the equivalent of replicating the Mona Lisa using nothing but crayons. I will say no more. Except that I pity that part of the world which never had the pleasure to watch it or even hear of it.

Though Hayao Miyazaki's work at Studio Ghibli is known the world over, few outside of Japan seem to know or care about the work he did before that in the 70s and early 80s. It's a real shame, because works such as Future Boy Conan (1978) still hold up well today despite the choppy television animation.

The plot is chock full of iconic Miyazaki themes and archetypes which look forward to his later films and manga. The post-apocalyptic setting, motif of flight, morally ambiguous characters, and environmentalist theme should all be familiar to hardcore Miyazaki fans. In fact, the whole thing feels like a dress rehearsal for the later Castle in the Sky (1986): the relationship between Lana and Conan mirrors the later bond between Pazu and Sheeta, the villain Lepka resembles Muska, and Captain Dyce and his crew bring to mind the Dola pirates.

Despite the similarities, though, Future Boy Conan stands well on its own. I would even go as far as to say it equals (or in some cases, even betters) Castle in the Sky. Being a 26-episode TV series, it has more time to let its characters develop and grow. One major difference between FBC and later Miyazaki is it's broad comedy. There's lots of goofy slapstick and silly moments that you don't see the like of in post-Nausicaa Miyazaki. Still, it's good comedy that never feels out of place.

I know most anime fans won't watch anything preceding Dragonball, but Ghibli fans and Miyazaki diehards will enjoy this series without a doubt. It helps show you where all those ideas, characters, and themes of his later films were first allowed to be fully expressed.