Rémi sans famille

I used to watch this anime television show when I was little in the eighties and I loved it then. Recently I got the Dutch-dubbed DVD as a gift, I watched it again just recently and I still loved it.

The story is based on a book by Hector Malot. It is set in France and is about an abandoned boy, Remi, who is raised in a poor family by sweet mother Barbarin and not-so-sweet father Jerome Barbarin, who luckily isn't home very often and works elsewhere. Despite their poverty, Remi is happy in the loving care of his mother. The story takes off when the Barbarins get so poor that Jerome decides to sell Remi to a traveling artist group led by the stern Vitalis, and we follow Remi's adventures, which are like a roller-coaster of happiness and sadness.

Remi is a warm-hearted gentle boy with a positive outlook on life despite everything that happens to him. I cried my eyes out at times, both when I was young and now that I saw it again. Somebody here called it a children's telenovela, and it really is like that.

This show made a deep impression on me as a child. It is well-paced, taking the time for each character to develop. It is animated beautifully. Just watching the landscapes is fantastic and they have such a great way of animating Remi's dreams and thoughts.

I would definitely recommend this anime, both for children and adults. It teaches life lessons, but without the lessons getting tiresome or being too obvious.

My title is not intended as a derogatory name. I grew up in Mexico in the 80s where soap operas (telenovelas) intended for adults (mainly housewives) were seen by everyone since little satellite TV was available. While my mom saw her soaps, we the children were kept entertained with cartoons on afternoon weekdays. Remi, as we know it in Mexico, is deeply ingrained in me as the first story I truly enjoyed. For a 5-year-old middle class, I didn't know much about poverty or suffering in the world, but learned it through the eyes of Remi. Even remembering some episodes bring back some tears in my eyes. It is a great piece of art and I never questioned it at all. it helped me imagine other worlds, other times. Only until recently I found out this cartoon is based on a french novel widely known. I wish more classics were shown in this way for these and future generations.

Advantage(+) +story +Art style +Narration style +Dialogues + Characters +Directing +music disadvantage(-)

I had watched a few episodes of Remi as a child, I just remembered it as a sad story. Now as an adult I realized how mature and compelling story this is. So harsh and full of pain and death and suffering but at the same time joy and happiness at times...just like LIFE. One need to take decisions and be smart and never lose courage to keep going and always look forward. It is incredible this was a "children cartoon", it is not as simple as that: "bad" people don't get punishment, there is injustice and pain, good people are not rewarded and things just happen, again, just like LIFE.

I watched this series when I was a kid, maybe 40 years ago. Full of sensations of all types; joy, sad, anger, lost, desperate, happy, etc. It's human nature and real life. Kids won't get all this, because they care more about simple things like the fun of animals and nice songs; but see it again when you get older and more mature, and I guarantee that you'll cry with tears in every episode. We're humans and those touchy unfair events of life must affect us deeply.

One more thing, it's really sad how our children are now raised watching silly cartoons with no morale or real humanity values; just crap of offensive, sarcastic, and greed stories.