-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
GKIDS announces they acquired the NA rights to Hayao Miyazaki's debut series, Future Boy Conan with a 4K remaster
- Thread starter mreddie
- Start date
Glad we're seeing more of these "impossible to license" anime finally getting freed up and given the proper releases they deserve.
This is the story that I've heard, mostly from people who had worked at Nippon Animation back in the day and fans who did some digging:
'Mirai Shonen Conan' ('Future Boy Conan') was very loosely based on 'The Incredible Tide' by Alexander Key, though while the basic premise is the same, the story in the anime is mostly Miyazaki's original material as he changed a lot of elements from the novel when the project was brought to him (though the series still credits Alexander Key's estate). NHK, a Japanese Television Station that aired the series in the 1970's, is known to be very difficult to work with and have a tendency to keep a tight grip on any intellectual property they broadcast.
Though an English dub was supposedly in the works in the early 1990's (by Streamline Pictures) for a North American release, Alexander Key's estate found out about it and were so angered by the idea of 'Future Boy Conan' coming to America that they filed a cease and desist order, and this resulted in Streamline Pictures giving the distribution rights back to NHK. Until now, you could only watch the series through pirated VHS recordings of varying quality and bootleg DVD releases.
This is kind of a big deal, given the legal hurdles this (and many other older anime series) have to go through.
I remember wondering about this and reading this ANN article a long time ago:
Answerman - Why Hasn't Anyone Licensed Miyazaki's Future Boy Conan?
Hayao Miyazaki made only one TV series, and it's nowhere to be found on American shores. Why hasn't it gotten released here?
but they point out that it's been licensed in other countries, so I'm not sure why the US would be an outlier as far as licensing. I always assumed because of Miyazaki's involvement, the licensor just priced it sky high for an older series, at least out of the realm of a Discotek or the like who bring over the older stuff.
Like I don't even think we have something like Mysterious Cities of Gold in Region 1 despite it having a dub and airing in America.
Did they say early 2021? I thought they made the announcement in October and just said sometime in 2021?
They're likely going to use the English dub that was recently commissioned by the Japanese rightsholders. I don't expect that GKIDS is going to produce their own dub.
It's coming out on Blu-Ray (duh), so that's an avenue you can watch when it's released. As far as streaming is concerned, I know the first episode is available here on the Internet Archive Database, so feel free to watch it and make your own decision if this series is worth your time and investment.
Holy shit, it's actually happening! Really hope they can get Chie, Gauche, Heidi, Marco, and Anne too at some point.
Oh you must be right, I see reports say early 21 but the limited bits gkids put out just say 21
Amazon.com: Future Boy Conan: The Complete Series [Blu-ray] : Ichiro Nagai, Hayao Miyazaki: Movies & TV
Amazon.com: Future Boy Conan: The Complete Series [Blu-ray] : Ichiro Nagai, Hayao Miyazaki: Movies & TV
www.amazon.com
They are of course making a big deal about "Miyazaki's first series", but would a Studio Ghibli era Miyazaki fan find it a good show? Or is it like a standard 70's anime, that he just happened to work on as his first Director job? I guess I'm asking, if he wasn't involved, and it wasn't rare, would it still be getting all the hype?
Yeah, I think you would absolutely find it good if you're a Ghibli-era fan. It's got the foundations of a lot of common Ghibli themes, executed in a serialized format. Very nice story, often unfathomably pretty/well animated!
I'm not super familiar with 70s anime, but when I watched it years and years ago, I had only seen Miyazaki's Ghibli stuff and I thought it was great!
I haven't seen it, but its probably worth watching even if just for the art.
Some of the cels I've seen from it are stunning.
I watched this show at the height of my Miyazaki obsession and absolutely loved it. It's basically a 13-hour-long version of Castle in the Sky. There's certainly some dated facets to the show, but the fact that it's finally getting a proper English\States-side release is wild. There's some truly masterful television storytelling here... several sequences, such as the thrilling escape from Industria and the dramatic confrontation during the tidal wave, remain some of the most memorable in Miyazaki's career.