太陽の子エステバン / The Mysterious Cities of Gold

(Japanese Video Series)

When I saw this Anime series in my local video store, I thought: what a great way to combine Japanese study with childhood nostalgia.

Remember this show? Of course you do. If you grew up in the 1980s, and if you lived in a house with basic cable, then I have no doubt this show has a special place in your heart.

And it turns out not only for Americans. I mentioned to my Australian co-worker that I was working my way through the series, and he said, "No kidding. I'm a member of the 'Mysterious Cities of Gold Webring'," (apparently such a thing exists) and then he proceeded to wax nostalgic about the series himself.

For anyone not familiar with this show:
It was a French / Japanese co-production. (My co-worker tried to tell me it was primarily a French project, so I couldn't really count it as Japanese anime. My own internet research leads me to believe it was mostly initiated by the Japanese side. I'm not going to waste a lot of space here on the debate though. Suffice it to say I'm counting it as a Japanese anime series for the purposes of this blog.)

It was then translated into English, and broadcast on Nickelodeon from 1986 to 1990. Which is where I, and many of you, saw it as a child.

In fact for much of my childhood I wasn't allowed to watch normal TV, and my viewing was restricted to just 3 channels: PBS, The Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon. So I used to watch this show a lot. And yet I never managed to make it all the way through to the end. I remember one summer when I had watched the show almost to its end, and then I was forbidden from watching TV for one week because I forgot to weed the garden. Another time I missed the conclusion because we had to all go pick my sister up from camp at Spring Hill, and I was given no choice about coming along for the afternoon.
(Also if memory serves correctly, this show used to be on at 2:30 in the afternoon. Which meant I couldn't watch it on a school day, and it was mostly a summer vacation show. But my memory grows hazy on this point. Does anyone else remember more clearly?)

Anyway, it was nice to sit down and watch the whole series on DVD from beginning to end. And of course watching it in the original Japanese helped me with my language studies.

For comparisons sake, I was just watching some of the English episodes on google video (there seem to be a lot of episodes floating around on the internet), and I realized how horrible the English dub actually was. This was something that never bothered me as a child, but I notice it now.
First off is the way all the dub voice actors are always rushing to finish their lines before the character's mouth finishes moving. For whatever reason, this seems to be a common problem when dubbing Japanese anime to English. (A phenomenon spoofed excellently on South Park).
That may be an unavoidable evil when dubbing from one language to another. What is less excusable is that the English voice actors seem to be sleepwalking their way through the performance. "Oh no. Oh let me go. Oh Esteban help me" (All spoken in a monotone).

Neither of these bothered me as a child. In fact I don't recall ever noticing it. But I notice it now.

So for voice acting, the Japanese version is far superior. Unfortunately the Japanese sound track is a big disappointment.

Remember the theme song from "Cities of Gold"? It had a mysterious feel to it, which really set the mood for the show.
Granted I was easier to impress back then, but go over to youtube and watch the opening sequence again. It still sounds pretty cool. And the French version is pretty much the same.
....And then, watch the Japanese opening theme. I'm a big fan of Japanese music, but the J-pop scene has more than it's share of cheesy pop ballads, and this is a prime example.

The series consists of 39 episodes. (Apparently 39 being the magic number needed to accommodate the Japan Broadcasting Corporation airing schedule during a year).
39 episodes is a lot to sit through when you're trying to watch them all on DVD. (Especially with school starting up , it took me about 3 months to work my way through this series). And yet at the same time, part of me was surprised there weren't more episodes. After all, 39 episodes is nothing really, considering Nickelodeon aired this show 5 days a week for 4 years. They must have run through the whole series every 2 months, and rerun the whole a thing a total of (...hold on a minute here...) 24 times in total.

But somehow it seemed a lot longer back then. If I missed the ending episode, it would seem like an eternity before the series would cycle around again to the conclusions (I would have guessed about half a year). I guess time really does pass slower when you're a child.

Anyway, I've gassed on long enough. I suppose I should finally get around to reviewing the actual content of this series.

This cartoon is clearly not adult entertainment for any number of reasons:
*the slapstick cartoonish humor is aimed straight at a child's sensibilities (as well as the buffoonery of the comic relief characters Sancho and Pedro) ,
* the action sequences take a lot of liberties with the laws of physics,
* the whole premise of the show requires a suspension of disbelief on a level more readily achieved by a child ,
* the adults defer to the decisions of the children in a way that only happens in children's cartoons,
et cetera.

So it's no good watching this show from the perspective of an adult. However, if you can try and watch this show from the perspective of a 10 year old child, it has aged surprisingly well. Especially compared to all the other junk we used to watch during the 80s.
Have you ever tried re-watching 80s cartoons as an adult? Superfriends, He-man, Thundercats, all the stuff we used to love back then is hard to sit through now. (When I was living back in the states 2 years ago, I was overjoyed when I discovered the cartoon network was re-running Superfriends, only to discover I couldn't even make it through a whole episode).

"Cities of Gold" on the other hand, was an absolute pleasure to re-watch. Sure I had to work hard to suspend my adult reasoning at several points throughout the series, but the story is well written, and a sense of exotic adventure pervades the whole series. Whether you're navigating the straits of Magellan, shipwrecked on the Galapagos Islands, in the jungles of South America, in the forests of the Amazon women, or deep in the caves of the Olmec's, you have a sense of being on a classic adventure in the tradition of the best pulp fiction writers. Burroughs would have been proud.

When I was a child, I had read in the school library about the real life historical Spanish quest for the cities of gold. At the time, that was yet another attraction to this series, as it gave it a real historical connection.
Watching it now, the historical connection seems very loose indeed. Especially once the series turns to science fiction and fantasy and blatantly abandons any pretense what so ever of historical accuracy. Still, it was a stroke of genius for someone to turn this ancient Spanish myth into a children's cartoon. The whole series has an air of ancient mystery to it.

The characters are surprisingly complex as well, by the standards of children's cartoons. Mendoza is the action swashbuckling action hero of the series. If one of the children gets in trouble, you can bet it will be Mendoza who swings in on a rope (with the dramatic music and his cape fluttering behind him) to save the day. In any other series, Mendoza would have been the title character of the show; like "He-man" or "Superman", or any other 80s cartoon, where the strongest and bravest character is also not only the lead character but also the moral strong point. (Didn't He-man even give moral lessons at the end of each episode?)

But in "Cities of Gold" you're never quite sure until the very end where Mendoza stands. You know part of him wants to protect the children, but another part of him just might sell them out for the gold if he ever got the chance. And the children, especially Zia, never fully trust Mendoza for most of the series.

And of course there's the whole concept (completely new to all of us 80s children) that this was an on-going story. Not everything was wrapped up and finished in 25 minutes, and then completely restarted the next day. The story developed, and the characters and their relationships also developed with it.

Finally, despite the fact that this series was produced in the early 80s, the animation has also aged very well. None of the cheap stop motion techniques you might expect from cartoons of this period. It could hold it's own against anything on TV today.

In conclusion: watching this video series straight through was a very pleasant trip down memory lane. It might have been a children's cartoon, but I never thought to myself, "how could I have liked this crap as a child?" Instead the thought that constantly went through my head while watching was, "No wonder I loved this show as a child. It's the perfect show for an 8 year old boy."

And plus I finally found out how the series ended!

According to wikipedia, a film based on this series is currently in production. If true, I'll be looking forward to seeing that when it comes out.

Link of the Day
Enough

The Mysterious Cities of Gold: Anime Series Review (Scripted)