Captain Future/Capitaine Flam/Capitán Futuro

The original Captain Future.

Continuing with legendary Animé from the sassy 70's today's entry is Captain Future. Originally a science fictional hero pulp character published in self-titled American pulp magazines during the 1940s and early 50s.

Although sometimes mistakenly attributed to science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton, who indeed authored most of Captain Future stories, the character was created by Better Publications editor Mort Weisinger during the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention...

In 1978, one year after Edmond Hamilton's death, Toei Animation of Japan produced a Captain Future (キャプテン・フューチャー Kyaputen Fyūchā) anime TV series of 53 episodes, based on 13 original Hamilton stories. Despite the obvious differences in cultural references and medium, the animated series was true to the original source in many ways, from the didactic scientific explanations to the emphasis on the usefulness of brains as opposed to brawn. However, the animated series took considerable 'literary license' modifications from the original pulp versions. More specifically to give it a more Star Wars driven direction that would lead audiences to a greater interest in the story. a Few of the changes made for the Animé were "upgrades" to a few characters. For instance, Otho the android became 'Otto' a humanoid with shape shifting abilities, the Brain (Simon Wright) possessed a female voice and the design of the "Comet" spaceship is completely new. The dark haired "Joan Randall" was drawn with red hair and "Marshall Ezra Gurney" was changed to a kid. Of course, these mods didn't diminish the quality of the stories. 

Han Solo... I mean Captain Future & Company.

Comet's full crew.

The series was translated in several languages and distributed globally. The four episodes comprising the series' second story arc were dubbed into English and released on video by ZIV International in the early 1980s as The Adventures of Captain Future. In the late 80s, Harmony Gold (Yes, Robotech again you haters) dubbed the series' initial four-part story as an edited "TV movie" simply entitled Captain Future.

While only eight episodes in total were dubbed into English, the series met huge success particularly in France, where the title and lead character's name were changed to "Capitaine Flam", in Italy with the translated title of "Capitan Futuro", in Latin America and Spain with the title "Capitán Futuro". The success in France and Italy was especially due to anthemic theme tunes (in the dubbed language) which became popular hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s on the French and Italian charts. Captain Future is considered one of the most popular anime series after being broadcast many times during the 1980s all along Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The series was also broadcast in Germany, where it appeared under its original title. However, this version was cut by about a quarter of the original length, which mainly affected violent scenes or those considered 'expendable' for the storylines. The reason for this was the misconception in its time that any Japanese anime was automatically meant for children, not for an older audience; the synchronization studios simply disregarded the fact that in Japan the series was broadcast in the evening hours, hardly a suitable time for children to watch television. Another well-known title released in Germany at about the same time, Heidi, Girl of the Alps, serves as one of many example cases for this misinterpretation.

The Millenium Fal... the Comet!

The collectible I wish I had.

The original incidental music was composed by Yuji Ohno, while the English-dubbed version had a new soundtrack composed by Mark Mercury. Mercury's work survived on the Latin American version, but a new opening was added for it, composed by Shuki Levy and sung by Chilean performer Juan Guillermo Aguirre (aka "Capitán Memo"). Levy's partnership with the Chilean singer would lead to a succesful career of making new music for many late 70's & early 80's Animé. In addition, Juan Guillermo Aguirre would re-release such music in Latin America in the year 2005 & 2007 in two CDs comprising most of the opening/ending songs from the most popular Animé he worked for.

For the German version, a completely new soundtrack was created by German composer Christian Bruhn. To this day, the soundtrack is considered cult for giving the series the right feeling and not only the theme song is still used as background music in many magazines and other shows. A soundtrack CD was released in 1995, and a remix called "The Final" by Phil Fuldner entered the top ten of the German and Swiss single charts in 1998. The German publisher Bastei-Verlag released a Captain Future comic series with original adventures.

Each story was developed over four 25-minute episodes, with a few very nice cliffhangers at the end of episodes. Design is okay, character development is too, though, well, they very much suit japanese cultural patterns. The Captain's crass male chauvinism, especially, is barely bearable nowadays, as is the insistence of Joann in getting abducted by the baddies in every story, so Curtis can come save her, but, well, those were the days...

Get the jump to lightspeed ready Chewy!

As mentioned by other connoisseurs of this Animé already, one of the series main assets is the incidental music, splendidly groovy and moody japanese jazz-rock, which gives a timeless feeling to the lot, Sad thing is, in the french dubbed version, the original score is drowned under the daft Jean-Jacques Debout title song (that guy is french singer Chantal Goya's husband, and he wrote most of her brain-dead children's songs) or its instrumental version, although sometimes you can still ear the original score poking in underneath. Bugger. Well, the title song is so corny it's actually cult as well in France...

The lot, that is 13 stories of each 4 episodes (we're talking about 22 hours), has been re-released on DVD in France. Sadly only in dubbed version, and well, the transfer is pretty cheap, but if you can get it as 7 DVD box set, it's not really an expensive one. Besides, you can watch all episodes of every story in a row without having to suffer those annoying titles in-between... or wait one week to know what happens next, the way we had to 20 years or so ago.

Joan, Cap's lady.

Joan meets her Captain's secret weapon.

Of course, people who've seen it as kids will love seeing the lot again, but I think that , despite its shortcomings, the series could appeal to mainstream science fiction fans too. 

 

Where can I buy this gem?

 

In case you are one of the few connoisseurs who happens to have not had a chance of watching Captain Future I have bad news for you. There are no official releases of the complete Animé neither on DVD nor on Blu-Ray. In fact, there was a French dubbed DVD released some years ago but now it's long gone. Besides it would require you to understand french. Also there was another release of the Latin American version "Capitán Futuro" some years ago in Chile but, then again, you'd need to speak spanish for the understanding of it. The long gone American VHS tapes may be the way but finding them must be very pricy. 

 

What about online? I don't think you can find the episodes on Netflix and its alikes. So, maybe looking for a TV rip, who knows...

 

Here's the original japanese opening:

 

Here's the english opening for "The Adventures of Captain Future"

Here's the french opening for "Capitaine Flam"

Here's the Latin America opening for "Capitán Futuro":