Visionaries: Chevaliers de la lueur magique

I used to be a big visionaries fan back in the late 80's, and was slightly miffed when it disappeared into thin air. Fast forward about 18 years later and I received a DVD with all 13 episodes. It is still as entertaining as it was when I was a wee 10 year old all those years ago. I would go as far as saying it was even better than a certain animated series called Master's Of The The Universe (lets face it the animation was ropey,they seemed to use the same frames of animation for every episode and don't get me started on the damn "the moral of this story is..." style endings) that lasted for about 80 episodes,spawned a rubbish movie and is currently being revived as I write. The action takes place on the planet Prysmos a futuristic world that is thrown into disarray when the age of magic arrives, causing its inhabitants to live a near medieval existence. A mysterious wizard known as Merklyn issues a challenge I.E anyone brave enough to brave the traps and monsters in Iron Mountain will be granted magical powers. Only 14 make it and are granted a totem (an animal that represents their personalities and can therefore turn into) and a magic staff ( with which They can call on spiritual entities with names such as Destruction,Wisdom,Speed etc by reciting a poem) and are told by Merklyn to use their powers to aid the world. The lucky recipients split off into factions i.e The good Spectral Knights led by Leoric and the evil Darkling Lords led by Darkstorm Both the spectral knights and darkling lords were all rounded characters (e.g Ectar (Leoric's right hand man) a highly decorated cop in the age of science who cant seem to forget his former profession. The episode where he squares off against his arch nemesis Reekon a former master thief,with its ending showing the pair parting ways having shown each other mutual respect, is a doozy.) All 13 episodes were well written,funny,dark and gripping with top notch voice acting. The Darkling lords were always the characters that made every episode worth watching, my personal favourite being Darkstorm's snivelling serf Mortdredd voiced superbly my the former Dr Zachary Smith himself Jonathan Harris.In my opinion He deserved to be one of most memorable cartoon characters of 80's but alas it never happened the toys didn't sell particularly well and in a few short years the franchise fizzled out.

My IMDb handle is named after one of the characters of visionaries.So that should show some indication of my feelings toward this classic.

Though it lasted for only 13 episodes, visionaries remains as one of the best cartoon shows of the 80s! Its got great characters, nice animation , supercool weapons and powers as well as one of the most exciting theme tunes a cartoon could ever have.

The pilot episode alone was one of the best pilot episodes I've seen for any television show ever,live action or otherwise..

Visionaries follows that overused 80s formula of a team of baddies vs a team of goodies, but those goodies and baddies are so interesting and their powers are so unique and imaginative that it really doesn't matter.It would have been nice to see those goodies and baddies developed over the course of another series but alas, it wasn't to be .

This is a truly great show and if you haven't heard of it - check it out !

Sometimes I wonder why Visionaries remained as a rather obscure 80s cartoon, considering than in many ways it could have easily become a succesful franchise as Transformers, G.I. Joe or even He-Man.

The setting, the characters and their powers had a lot of potential to explore, and it's such a shame that almost nobody remembers this series nowadays.

I loved Visionairies. It was brilliantly written with an older age theme compared to similar cartoons such as Thunder cats.

Very well thought out with the way the good and the bad knights had animals they turned into and special powers to use from their magic staffs. The good and the bad knights were opposites to each other pretty much with the good guys being 'way too nice for their own good' and the bad knights a bit over obsessed with getting their enemies. This just made for some classic action. Don't know how it didn't get an second series! Everyone I know who watched it at the time rate it as the best cartoon they have seen...Classic! You can watch every episode on You tube if you have the time.......and that is time well spent! Ben

So anyway, there I was today watching my just recently acquired (from a car-boot sale) VHS of Visionaries, and I suddenly realised that unlike so many kids series from the 80's, this one really held up. It had remarkably good animation for a Saturday morning cartoon, the plots were quite complex without being confusing, the dialogue was sophisticated and not cheesy at all and overall it was just a very imaginative, quality programme. Plus unlike say, He-man, it didn't have some patronising moral that was rammed down your throat at the end of every episode, which has got to be worth at least an extra 50 points in my opinion. Far superior than most of the dreck that gets passed off as children's entertainment these days, this comes highly recommended. It's hard to find though, so keep an eye out..