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Pile of Shame - MARCO: 3,000 Leagues in Search of Mother

I wonder why it has persisted into the modern day, though?

The first of these, Dog of Flanders, was a decent success, and even got a hacked-apart release in the US via Pioneer Animation's short-lived family film division.

After meeting a neighboring family of street performers, Marco learns that a ship will soon be leaving town en route to Argentina, and Marco is obsessed with going there himself to try and find his mother. And, in a feat of stunningly poor parenting, Marco's father lets him.

World Masterpiece Theater stories are a hard sell to current otaku. There's nothing cool or sexy about the blobby, workmanlike designs, and stories about European kids suffering (or ANY kids suffering, really) generally don't tickle the escapist fantasy tastes of most fans.

Maybe that's why so few attempts to fansub them have borne fruit, and only one series has ever been licensed for sale in North America. (Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, CPM).

You know, despite the issues inherent with adapting a several-episode TV series into a single movie, Japan's obsession with doing so made sense for these years when home video and whatnot wasn't much of a thing. I wonder why it has persisted into the modern day, though?

One advantage that the original series had that it sounds like this movie doesn't, is that the melodramatic story is stretched out over 52 episodes. The series focuses more on the day to day lives of the characters within the context of the larger narrative. This gives the creators time to flesh things out and lends an air of verisimilitude to the proceedings that the story doesn't always merit. For a 70's anime, the limited animation holds up a lot better than you might expect it to, and Takahata's direction, at least to my eyes, seems as though it is well informed by the classics of Italian cinema. I'm in the middle of watching it right now, and there are moments that are straight up breathtaking.

@belvadeer: I was mainly speaking of the practice of producing summary movies themselves, though; not just child suffering ones. Although, I do definitely agree that Japan has a great appreciation (possibly even obsession) with the child suffering genre.

Or were you saying that most of these summary movies have been works that could fit into the child suffering genre?

Money, that's all it is.

GVman wrote:

@belvadeer: I was mainly speaking of the practice of producing summary movies themselves, though; not just child suffering ones. Although, I do definitely agree that Japan has a great appreciation (possibly even obsession) with the child suffering genre. Or were you saying that most of these summary movies have been works that could fit into the child suffering genre?

The former. I thought you were speaking specifically about the genre, not the movie summary practice, though you do make an excellent point about that too.

Money, that's all it is.

The real problem is that the majority of Japanese tend to be an older demographic rather than to cater to the young crowd all the time, that's the problem. They're use to doing the same things we were bothering with 30 years ago.

[quote="Maokun"]This, like many other "child-suffering" anime (Heidi, Tom Sawyer, Cuore-'Heart', the parent story to Marco-, Butch Bee, Banner Tail, etc.) found its way into Latin-American TV during the late 80's. Pretty great stuff if you can take having your heart ripped out of your chest every weekday afternoon as an 8-year old, speaking from experience.

The film did get two English subbed releases; one from Universe in Hong Kong, the second from Dawoori Entertainment in Korea. I have the Hong Kong version which is OK in terms of video and the subs are pretty good. Video is 4:3 letterbox. No idea what the Korean version is like. Both versions seem to be out of print.

Money, that's all it is.

The real problem is that the majority of Japanese tend to be an older demographic rather than to cater to the young crowd all the time, that's the problem. They're use to doing the same things we were bothering with 30 years ago.

Maokun wrote:

This, like many other "child-suffering" anime (Heidi, Tom Sawyer, Cuore-'Heart', the parent story to Marco-, Butch Bee, Banner Tail, etc.) found its way into Latin-American TV during the late 80's. Pretty great stuff if you can take having your heart ripped out of your chest every weekday afternoon as an 8-year old, speaking from experience.

I wouldn't mind watching that at all, really. I did it before and I can do it again.

Ooh, thank you kindly! Added to the article.