Ulysse 31

"Ulysse(s) 31" is a brilliant animated series from the early 1980's, a brilliant French-Japanese co-production. It is basically a science fiction re-telling of Homer's famous epic, with the noble & heroic titular character now lost in space, after having offended the Greek Gods, and looking for a way home.

Of course, adapting and updating such an old story would not work without some changes here and there, and so new characters and situations and setting were added. Even so, the series was, and is, a great way to introduce people to the great stories of ancient mythology.

The quality of animation is very good (for a product of its time, anyway) with a good musical score, catchy theme song included.

Highly recommended for fans of animation, SF fans, and anyone who is interested in mythology.

A fantastic series. A japanese-french production, one of the best anime I have seen. I have been an anime fan since i was 3, and this is one of the best. Yeah, the art style is not anime,but everything in it and the fact that it was produced mostly by japanese people, (even the character designer is japanese), it can count as an anime. One of the best series you will ever see.

I decided to watch one of the episodes of this series on FOX Kids, and here is what I think of the series after one episode; it's pretty good!

Ulysses 31, I think, uses a clever and inventive way of re-telling Greek mythology in this science fiction fantasy environment. It might be commonplace now for most kids' science fiction programmes today, but this might have been something different when it was first transmitted in 1981.

The dubbing is just adequate, but, as someone who is now used to watching foreign animation with sub-titles, I think that I might enjoy the dialogue more in its original French language, with English subtitles (hope that's one of the features on the upcoming DVD). The animation is just what you except from a TV animated series aimed at kids for from this era (watching Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors after this, the animation is pretty conventional). I do admire how they done the spaceship, when it is moving in space and remains quite static. Also, the attention on the spaceship is somewhat realistic (yes, I know it's a cartoon, but I pay attention to this sort of stuff!). Anyway, great work on the spaceship! I was skeptical on using this 2D cell animation for this programme, but, as I started to enjoy and progress further into the episode's narrative, it doesn't seem to bother me. Also, the music is pretty good throughout the programme too! Overall, pretty good series, but I will need to see more episodes to understand why this series is well celebrated.

I found this on IMDB but mistake - I didn't realise that they would list it.

This has to be one of the best animated shows ever - made in France and developed in Japan, it's Homer's Odyssey, set in the 31st Century.

Ulysses upsets the Gods and has to fly his ship to the Kingdom of Hades to unfreeze his crew and return to Earth. On the way, all manner of obstacles get in the way as he flies across the Universe desperately seeking the Kingdom.

Top stuff - just such a shame it's not available on DVD (hint)!

Ulysses 31 is a lose adaptation of Homer's Odyssey and to be honest has copied many things from Star Wars like some of the weapons used in to a point that I was wandering if George Lucas had give them any lawsuit for plagiarism and when I check he surely did it.

In any cases the series is decent and it has good animation, though a bit cheap and dated for today and at times you feel that the plot is on repeat "Ulysses go to some adventure ,tries to win ,but the Gods do their thing and mess the whole effort". In any case as a kid series go is it good and it will make your children indirectly learn some ancient Greek myths.

And that is the best part of the series ,it very nicely fuses the sci-fi of the series with many of the most famous legends of the myths and I can't say that it was sloppily made for it seems the block of the work in the series was in that part and it was fine.

As for the music is cheesy as any eighties cartoon ,yet still is enjoyable and fits the tone of the series.

Over all it was an interesting experience and I want it to watch it because I wanted to see a different take to a familiar story and the final product wasn't bad at all.