[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Future Boy Conan episode 3: The first companion
Conan sets out across the ocean to find Lana, displays a taste for VERY fresh sushi and meets a fellow human being on a strange island. He also finds out some interesting clues concerning Industria from his new-found friend.
It’s always interesting to see how a solitary and half-wild kid such as Conan reacts to meeting other people: up until recently his granfather had been his only company and he greeted Lana with some quite comical curiosity and unease. I was really chuckling when Conan treats the other boy as a rival then a friend as they try to outdo one another and eventually realise that they are very much alike: sometimes this series reminds me of the old classic adventure tales such as Treasure Island and the like, with some science fiction lurking beneath it all. The backgrounds with the ruins of old towns and the buried artifacts that turn up later on in the episode highlight the post-apocalyptic themes that underly the series: for a kids’ TV show it addresses some quite serious issues at times.
One or two other details are unlikely to crop up in animated adventure stories: I can’t see the sight of a youngster smoking a cigarette he’d bartered for a dead rat (no, really) going down well in our health-conscious, politically-correct times! Odd that. 
The story doesn’t bog itself down with trivial situations though, and by the end it’s back into ‘Conan to the rescue’ mode once more - featuring a robot versus a rusty bicycle of all things! For such an aged series, Future Boy Conan is proving to be a lot of fun.
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