GeekParody

Highly recommended anime from 1978 that’s not getting enough attention: Future Boy Conan.

Actually based on an American novel (The Incredible Tide by Alexander Key, which you can read here), it’s a remarkable 26-episodes long adaptation, which covers the mysterious-science-fiction setting of the book and its main story, but also expands aspects of it (it still feels like it could be an actual sequel by the author).

Synopsis:

July 2008. Mankind was faced with the threat of extinction. An ultra-magnetic weapon, far more devastating than any nuclear weapon known, destroyed half the world in an instant. The earth’s crust was rocked by massive movements, the earth was thrown off its axis, and the five continents were torn completely apart and sank deep below the sea…

The attempt by a number of people to flee to outer space failed. Their spaceships were forced back to the earth and vanished with their hopes shattered. But one of the spaceships narrowly escaped destruction and crash-landed on a small island which had miraculously survived the devastation. The crew members of the spaceship settled there, as if they were seeds sown on the island.

After years, a boy was born. He was a new life in the desert, a ray of light in the darkness of the annihilated earth…

Adaptation

Being a TV series, the setting isn’t introduced as quickly as the book, but instead when new characters are met, through their backstories, flashbacks explain a lot of the post-apocalyptic bizarre environment, steampunk technologies and political groups of the universe of Future Boy Conan.

It’s very interesting when foreign stories are adapted for anime: japan has their own tales and legends, and this different background creates a different perspective. The Japanese director will weave the original story with morals, myths and storytelling methods from his own culture. The original works are usually honored: a thorough study of the universe and the is done, resulting in a very faithful adaptation.

Influential anime?

This is one of Hayao Miyazaki’s (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke) earlier work, a director known for the huge influence he had on anime, western animation and video games. Some of it is pretty obvious (like Final Fantasy’s Chocobos which are almost identical to Nausicaä’s birds “Horseclaws”) while some of it less apparent. I would say Future Boy Conan also did have an influence to Final Fantasy games, we are featured with these now common fantastic themes:  long-lost technology rediscovered, protagonists persecuted by an evil empire, telepathy powers developed in time of crisis, post-apocalypse world, not-so-evil antagonists, not-so-lawful sidekicks joining the party, the list could go on.

Rating

Rating: 95%. Future Boy Conan episodes are very fluid, it features an extensive philosophical story, deep evolving characters, gorgeous backgrounds and very creative action sequences that make the series feel like it’s a single very-long-but-would-still-watch-more top-notch movie. It steals everything that’s remarkable from The Incredible Tide, shows it in the background while even more interesting action and story takes place.

The only con would be some missed opportunities, some scenes could have a darker tone. The humorous and joyful scenes fit the anime in the most part, but I feel like it wasn’t the right place in a few rare instances.