Visionaries: Chevaliers de la lueur magique

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 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.

When this show was on I watched it every time I could! I thought that the characters were really neat and all had great personalities. The animation in My opinion was crisp, clean, and really clear. Not to mention beautiful! Most of the characters in this show all have great personalities. in My opinion these characters are some of the best ever seen. In fact, The things that goes on in this series' cartoons are in My opinion action packed which that is what makes the show good. There are so many characters to like If you like the other 1980s' animated cartoons like M.A.S.K., Transformers, and others then I strongly recommend that you watch this show!

This cartoon used was one of the best of its time in the late 80's era. I mean it foretold about the coming of a second age of magic. You would also see spectacular animation such as man transforming into beast.

You would also see the heroic Spectral Knights fight against the evil Darkling Lords. If you haven't seen this movie or television series. You are missing out on a cartoon that became a legend.

Visionaries is one of those shows from my childhood that I remember vividly, it's been so good to rewatch it, and relive it, so many young memories brought back.

It holds up very well, it's nicely animated, with some fun characters, and plenty of action.

I had a job getting hold of the dvd, but so glad I did, one thing I've become aware of, and perhaps the reason it didn't last, is it did become a little repetitive quite quickly.

I seemed to remember this lasting for years, it was a real surprise to see that only one series was made. I only wish I'd kept hold of the figures.

With the current love for nostalgia, wouldn't it be great to see this brought back from the ashes, it really is a story of the good and bad guys fighting one another.

Catch it is you can, 8/10.