Animated Reflections: The Mysterious Cities of Gold (80's Version)

So the first in my series where I look at an animated show/movie and just give my opinions on it. Honestly, it's more to look at shows I've seen over the years and my view on them. If your looking for a history on them or an in-depth analyst on themes and stuff, this ain't it. So let's kicked it off with a classic that has recently returned for me. Side note, I would have added more video and screen shots, but finding anything of quality is kinda rare, but will try to have more for my next one.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold

So here's one that came out of the blue recently. I was flicking through channels on my T.V when suddenly I stumbled on an animated show. Curious, I continued to watch it and it wasn't long that I realised that I remembered watching it a long time ago. As the episode came to an end and I learned it's name, I immediately started searching the internet for more information on it. Over the next few weeks I continued to watch the episodes and when I missed a bunch, the channel did a rerun. The channel was NITV, Australia's channel focusing more on indigenous programming, but they do get access to shows from other countries that may deal with indigenous stories from other countries (given it's an 80's cartoon set in the America's with educational segments at the end, it counts). Having seen most of the episodes, I can honestly say that I love this show (so much so that the series is able to be viewed on the SBS website, so I get to go back and watch it again and again).

Based on what appears to be the time of the Spanish conquest of the new world, we follow our heroes in their quest to find the legendary Cities of Gold. What starts off as a simple adventure tends to follow some strange twists as it turns out that the builders of these cities were far more advance then the Europeans at that time, but it's citizens are long gone. The final part of the series get really weird when it starts to become more science-fiction like (which I must admit, sorta put me off a bit). Still, I still find the writing and story quite enjoyable and engaging.

Our main three heroes consist of Esteban who is our main character in this story, Zia who is the daughter of a High-Priest and Tao who is the descendant of a now long gone empire. Together, these three are the focus of the adventure, with each tending to serve some essential purpose to the main plot. Along with them is the great Spanish navigator Mendoza and the two comedic duo of Sancho and Pedro. While the comedic duo are mostly use for jokes based on their stupid and cowardly actions, who are all in it for the gold, Mendoza is more complicated. He comes off greedy for gold like most of the name Spanish characters, but at times tends to be torn as he also wants to protect the children. It's clear he's and intelligent and powerful character, so at times you can't tell if you should hate him or cheer for him. I do enjoy characters that have a bit more too them.

The animation is much like what you expect from an early 80's cartoon. It's very anime in style, which I guess is expected from a joint French-Japanese production (it certainly reminds me of a few anime movies I saw from around that time period). I honestly don't have any problems with it. Sure it hasn't aged the best and the sound isn't the greatest, but I didn't notice many problems with it, more due to the fact I was enjoying watching it over looking for errors. It's a good sign when your too busy enjoying the show to spend time looking for animation flaws.

Speaking of sound, this is an English dubbed show, so as you would imagine from a dubbed show in the early 80's, it isn't perfect. There are times when the voices seem rushed or have a little lack in acting (people crying always seem to have trouble pulling off that effect), but there are times that it works well. I am willing to let this slide as I do find the voices to match the characters well and hell, I've seen much worse voice acting and syncing in modern animated shows and movies. Then there is the music. Oh boy, do I love the music. I can't quite explain it, but there are musical moments in the show that I somehow find strange, but very much to my liking. Then there is the theme song.

 Many who talk about the series will usually mention the theme song, which plays both in the intro and the end credits. I absolutely love it. To me, this just feels like a song of adventure and I constantly find myself singing along to it.

The show itself is broken up into a few parts. The first is the story, which takes up the majority of the time, followed by a 'next time on' segment showing parts of the next episode. This is then followed up by an educational piece talking about either known facts and stories about the South American native people (I assume most of them are still accurate). The stories themselves are in continuation, meaning they are all connected to tell the whole story of the adventure. This has it's good and bad points, though for me the bad part is that by the end of the episode I'm so engrossed in the story that I get annoyed that I have to wait for the next episode. Then the theme song comes on and after a sing-a-long I'm much happier.

Overall

I do highly recommend people watch this one. For me, I enjoyed it when I was little, as an adult I still enjoy it. Going to have to see if there is a DVD collection of it that was released in Australia (we tend to get ripped off with DVD series releases, usually only getting half of a shows episodes released with the other half not getting released).

However....

Now I did say the 80's version. Turns out that when looking for information, the Wiki article mentioned that the French company got the right to continue the series and in 2012 (around 30 years later), started working on Season 2 and then a few years later Season 3 was worked on. Now I haven't seen any of the episodes yet, but I did find the intro song.

So my quick opinions of this. The animation is more up to date, but whether that is a good thing or not is purely up to the fan base. It would probably be more expensive to try and capture the classic look and as far as I'm concern the visuals do look very nice, though I'm not too sure on Sancho and Pedro's designs. I do not like the theme song however. It just doesn't capture the same feel as the original did and feels more like one of those cover songs a band does of a theme song at the end of a movie (it's not bad, it's just not for me). If I watch it and that was my only complaint, then it would still be good. That said, I have seen mixed opinions on the net about it, with some saying it's good, while more devoted fans saying that many of the cast seem to be acting out of character from their personality and actions from the original series. Perhaps some day I'll get to watch it and finally give my opinion on it.

All I know is that there is a game on Steam based on the series, so I'll probably get to play that before I ever get a chance to watch this.