Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 1978
Jan. 16th, 2023 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAfter sampling three anime series in a row about as old as I am but still new to me, I returned to the opening of a show I’d first got around to not that long ago. I have to admit to having begun Future Boy Conan at a moment when “saving what you’ve long been told is the best ‘for later’ because it just might all be downhill afterwards” had come to feel risky. It had appealed over its first half, but I do keep thinking back and wondering if some ungrateful part of me began resisting, for no clear reason, wanting to call it “the best ever” in its closing episodes. Then, it just so happened the more than four decade-old series was licensed for Blu-Ray release not by Discotek but by GKIDS; Hayao Miyazaki having directed it would seem the reason why. As ever, I did feel obligated to buy a legitimate copy.
The first episode did look impressive on Blu-Ray even if “it’s not theatrical animation” was obvious enough. Having remembered it opening with Conan himself showing off his inexhaustible energy hunting down a shark, I did wind up surprised by how much more story was included in its opening instalment, setting up the somewhat larger world beyond Conan’s tiny remnant of post-apocalyptic land and the basic conflict. The action ended on a cliffhanger; I suppose it would be a bit frustrating to have to leave this show waiting for the sake of getting to scheduled samples from the years that followed it, although there might be the slightest risk there of “letting your imagination run away on you” (which I don’t think was my problem the last time around).
The first episode did look impressive on Blu-Ray even if “it’s not theatrical animation” was obvious enough. Having remembered it opening with Conan himself showing off his inexhaustible energy hunting down a shark, I did wind up surprised by how much more story was included in its opening instalment, setting up the somewhat larger world beyond Conan’s tiny remnant of post-apocalyptic land and the basic conflict. The action ended on a cliffhanger; I suppose it would be a bit frustrating to have to leave this show waiting for the sake of getting to scheduled samples from the years that followed it, although there might be the slightest risk there of “letting your imagination run away on you” (which I don’t think was my problem the last time around).