30 May 2007
My true nature
When I was a kid, like many other kids of my generation, I watched Japanese anime on TV. Names like Candy, Goldorak and Albator are common references in France. And one of the reasons is that many of those anime were co-produced between France and Japan. We were not really the Sesame Street culture.
There was one particular anime that stood out among dozens of them. I was 8 or 9 and hooked to the end (actually I never got to watch the very last episode). It bore the most exciting title: "Les Mystérieuses Cités d'Or" (The Mysterious Cities of Gold) and with a mix of history, poetry and science-fiction, it tells the most exciting story - In 1532, Esteban, an orphan believed to have the power to call the Sun (he would be the "son of the sun"), leaves Spain at 12 to follow an intriguing sailor and adventurer, Mendoza, to the New World to look for his father. On the road, he befriends two kids his age: first, Zia, an Inca and then Tao, the last descendant of the Mu empire. In Peru, they travel on the path of the cities of gold while trying to escape the pursuit of the Conquistadors who believe they are the keys to immense treasures.
I'm pretty much convinced that this anime triggered most of my life callings: traveling, history and politics.
Maybe I'm being simplistic but I can't remember before that time this intense need I had pretty early to expand my horizons widely, and this awareness of the links, bridges and breaks between civilizations and of the wastes and damages a conquering people could provoke upon a defeated one.
Admire the construction of the opening credits, a sort of Powers-of-Ten that builds up the excitation to a dramatic resolution carried by the song.
The first seconds and the narrator's voice still have quite the same commanding effects on me.
--Joëlle
There was one particular anime that stood out among dozens of them. I was 8 or 9 and hooked to the end (actually I never got to watch the very last episode). It bore the most exciting title: "Les Mystérieuses Cités d'Or" (The Mysterious Cities of Gold) and with a mix of history, poetry and science-fiction, it tells the most exciting story - In 1532, Esteban, an orphan believed to have the power to call the Sun (he would be the "son of the sun"), leaves Spain at 12 to follow an intriguing sailor and adventurer, Mendoza, to the New World to look for his father. On the road, he befriends two kids his age: first, Zia, an Inca and then Tao, the last descendant of the Mu empire. In Peru, they travel on the path of the cities of gold while trying to escape the pursuit of the Conquistadors who believe they are the keys to immense treasures.
I'm pretty much convinced that this anime triggered most of my life callings: traveling, history and politics.
Maybe I'm being simplistic but I can't remember before that time this intense need I had pretty early to expand my horizons widely, and this awareness of the links, bridges and breaks between civilizations and of the wastes and damages a conquering people could provoke upon a defeated one.
Admire the construction of the opening credits, a sort of Powers-of-Ten that builds up the excitation to a dramatic resolution carried by the song.
The first seconds and the narrator's voice still have quite the same commanding effects on me.
--Joëlle
Labels: Anime, History, Politics, Traveling
