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Rating: In Italy, starting from the second half of the seventies, from the bright Land of the Rising Sun came anime of every theme and category. Amidst the robotic domination of the "Nagaian" giants, their bizarre substitutes, and the fragile orphaned children always battling harpy rulers, arrogant rich people, and tragicomic "Fantozzian" adventures, appeared on the small broadcasters of the boot what represents, in broad terms, the official debut of the master Hayao Miyazaki: "Mirai shonen Konan", an engaging series of 26 episodes, translated here as "Conan, the Boy of the Future", based on the novel "The Incredible Tide" by Alexander Kay.
A few years before Conan and a good three decades before the worldwide recognition of the multi-award-winning "Spirited Away", the talented Miyazaki began laying the foundation of his work by collaborating on the first two series of Lupin III, masterfully directing some episodes, and soon after completing Conan, creating a feature film "The Castle of Cagliostro". During that decade, Nippon Animation entrusted Hayao with the delicate task of designing the set for "Heidi" ('74) and "Anne of Green Gables" ('79), two of the most illustrious orphaned girls mentioned earlier, as well as "Marco" ('76) an "offshoot" based on the story "From the Apennines to the Andes" from the book "Heart". The three series, directed by friend and colleague Isao Takahata, thanks to that contribution, now offer drawings of excellent quality, fresh and particularly enjoyable. Perhaps "Heidi" has aged a bit more compared to the others, but the style is recognizable.
Conan was no exception, released in Japan in 1978, narrating the adventures of a boy in a post-war world in the year 2028, where the continents have sunk due to a magnetic bomb explosion twenty years earlier, a result of scientists discovering solar energy. The few survivors of the disaster reside scattered on some islands, many of them on Indastria, a gray and functional city managed by Lepka, where citizens, proportionate to their social utility, have the right to a normal existence or to segregation in the "Core Block" underground. Conan is about 12 years old and has never crossed the waters beyond the Lost island, where he lives with his grandfather. The fugitive peer Lana, found unconscious on the beach, will be the primary reason for the adventure Conan will embark on by sea and land. Often kidnapped for Lepka, increasingly inclined towards totalitarian tendencies, little Lana is for him the keystone to accessing the secret of solar energy; indeed, the missing Dr. Rao is the only one who knows the scientific method to create the powerful device capable of repeating damages caused twenty years earlier, which Lepka desires morbidly for his evil purposes. But he did not consider that the brave young Conan is more motivated than ever to save the girl first, and consequently embrace the cause of thousands of people, over whom the sword of Damocles of a new disaster looms. Initially ambiguous and hostile characters will later provide an essential contribution to liberating the threatened territories. The island of Hyarbor, the native land of Lana and Dr. Rao, is the antipode of Indastria; its inhabitants are engaged in artisanal activities, farming, raising animals, manually producing the items they use, are sociable, altruistic, and collaborate with each other for the positive proliferation of the community. Hyarbor is the fertile seed from which everything will regenerate.
One must remember that it is, after all, a cartoon and sometimes it exaggerates by putting the protagonist in front of humanly impossible feats for the age represented, such as lifting and moving immense objects or after leaps of dozens of meters balancing on two-centimeter ledges, but this also serves to convey the idea of the boy's tenacity and pragmatism, who with the aid of a single harpoon faces every danger. That white weapon is his scepter, the symbol of simplicity against the intimidating overwhelming power of more technological and conventional weapons (the Japanese themselves have known something about this since 1945).
Compared to the novel, Miyazaki modifies and softens the anime, shaping it especially for younger audiences, while still maintaining a fascinating and sustained plot that never bores and addressing deep themes inclined towards a visceral love for nature (a topic dear to the director) and the fundamental spirit of solidarity among people, it also knows how to engage the sensitivity of a more mature audience, infusing an imagery of extending boundaries of time and space.
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