My title is not intended as a derogatory name. I grew up in Mexico in the 80s where soap operas (telenovelas) intended for adults (mainly housewives) were seen by everyone since little satellite TV was available. While my mom saw her soaps, we the children were kept entertained with cartoons on afternoon weekdays. Remi, as we know it in Mexico, is deeply ingrained in me as the first story I truly enjoyed. For a 5-year-old middle class, I didn't know much about poverty or suffering in the world, but learned it through the eyes of Remi. Even remembering some episodes bring back some tears in my eyes. It is a great piece of art and I never questioned it at all. it helped me imagine other worlds, other times. Only until recently I found out this cartoon is based on a french novel widely known. I wish more classics were shown in this way for these and future generations.
6 Reviews
My first Manga.
Chip_douglas15 November 2006
Warning: Spoilers
A faithful version of Hector Malot's novel "Sans Famille" adapted for animation 99 years after the book's publication. It tells the at times almost unbearably sad tale of Remi, an eight year old French farm boy. He learns that he was a foundling when his stepfather arrives home and promptly sells the boy to traveling musician Vitalis to join his band of performers (three dogs and a monkey). For Remi, tragedy seems to strike every time a tiny sparkle of hope arrives in the boy's life. But don't worry, he will eventually find happiness even if it will only be after 51 half hours of misery.
This series was quite heavilly promoted in Europe because of the gorgeous animation technique which appeared to give it a three-dimensional effect. Remi was drawn as a typical Anime boy with large eyes and the occasional jerky leg movement, while his mentor Vitalis was portrayed as an enormous, brick wall of a man, despite the gray beard. Both of them had fashionably long seventies hair.
Admittedly, when this series was first broadcast by the AVRO on Dutch TV between October1979 and August of 1980, my young mind was not quite prepared to watch a cartoon series like this. First of all, it was a serial, and having to invest to such a long continuous story was unusual in TV shows at the time. Secondly, the animation was quite different from American and European contemporaries (my parents explained to me the names on the credits were Japanese, which was puzzling seeing as it was a French story). But most importantly, the story was often extremely sad. More than half the traveling performers die before the series is half way through. Poor Remi has to content with poverty, prejudice, cruel work-masters, a flood in a coal mine, a family of thieves, a young girl who can't speak, a boy who can't walk and several character, both good and bad, are thrown in jail at some point or another.
In the mid-eighties there was a Dutch video release, for wich the series was reedited into a mere 90 minutes, and completely re-dubbed. This was because they had cut out so much material that they had add new dialogue to explain things. And when the entire series was shown again on EO television between September 1996 and July 1997, the soundtrack was completely redone once more, including a new, hipper theme tune and a title change from "Remi" to "Alleen op de Wereld". This time the dialogue had to be changed because the EO is a very religious broadcast network and the original AVRO dubbing featured a couple of mild swear words.
The entire series (1530 minutes) was finally released on DVD in the Netherlands with help from the archive at Beeld & Geluid in 2011. This is predominately the AVRO version, although episodes 13 and 24 feature the EO voice tracks. My guess is they couldn't locate the original tapes from those two installments. Shame they couldn't add both audiotracks to every episode, then it would've been 3060 minutes worfh of Remi.
Having now finally manged to see every episode, this 40+ year old series remains a very impressive adaptation. The first half of the book is very fleshed out, with many new details added, but the second half is a bit less faithful to the original text. For instance, here Remi finds a new monkey to replace the original Jolli-Couer and his best friend Mattia has a much stronger personality in the cartoon compared to the often quite docile character from the book. Still, all the important story elements remain the same and a lot of touching and emotional scenes are highlighted by the animators.
Another, completely different Manga version of Sans Famille was made during the nineties, in which Remi was given a gender swap (but still kept her old 'masculine' name. Poor child. It seems Remi will never get a break.
9 out of 10
This series was quite heavilly promoted in Europe because of the gorgeous animation technique which appeared to give it a three-dimensional effect. Remi was drawn as a typical Anime boy with large eyes and the occasional jerky leg movement, while his mentor Vitalis was portrayed as an enormous, brick wall of a man, despite the gray beard. Both of them had fashionably long seventies hair.
Admittedly, when this series was first broadcast by the AVRO on Dutch TV between October1979 and August of 1980, my young mind was not quite prepared to watch a cartoon series like this. First of all, it was a serial, and having to invest to such a long continuous story was unusual in TV shows at the time. Secondly, the animation was quite different from American and European contemporaries (my parents explained to me the names on the credits were Japanese, which was puzzling seeing as it was a French story). But most importantly, the story was often extremely sad. More than half the traveling performers die before the series is half way through. Poor Remi has to content with poverty, prejudice, cruel work-masters, a flood in a coal mine, a family of thieves, a young girl who can't speak, a boy who can't walk and several character, both good and bad, are thrown in jail at some point or another.
In the mid-eighties there was a Dutch video release, for wich the series was reedited into a mere 90 minutes, and completely re-dubbed. This was because they had cut out so much material that they had add new dialogue to explain things. And when the entire series was shown again on EO television between September 1996 and July 1997, the soundtrack was completely redone once more, including a new, hipper theme tune and a title change from "Remi" to "Alleen op de Wereld". This time the dialogue had to be changed because the EO is a very religious broadcast network and the original AVRO dubbing featured a couple of mild swear words.
The entire series (1530 minutes) was finally released on DVD in the Netherlands with help from the archive at Beeld & Geluid in 2011. This is predominately the AVRO version, although episodes 13 and 24 feature the EO voice tracks. My guess is they couldn't locate the original tapes from those two installments. Shame they couldn't add both audiotracks to every episode, then it would've been 3060 minutes worfh of Remi.
Having now finally manged to see every episode, this 40+ year old series remains a very impressive adaptation. The first half of the book is very fleshed out, with many new details added, but the second half is a bit less faithful to the original text. For instance, here Remi finds a new monkey to replace the original Jolli-Couer and his best friend Mattia has a much stronger personality in the cartoon compared to the often quite docile character from the book. Still, all the important story elements remain the same and a lot of touching and emotional scenes are highlighted by the animators.
Another, completely different Manga version of Sans Famille was made during the nineties, in which Remi was given a gender swap (but still kept her old 'masculine' name. Poor child. It seems Remi will never get a break.
9 out of 10
A great story for kids and adults
Satsuki_Mei10 October 2012
I used to watch this anime television show when I was little in the eighties and I loved it then. Recently I got the Dutch-dubbed DVD as a gift, I watched it again just recently and I still loved it.
The story is based on a book by Hector Malot. It is set in France and is about an abandoned boy, Remi, who is raised in a poor family by sweet mother Barbarin and not-so-sweet father Jerome Barbarin, who luckily isn't home very often and works elsewhere. Despite their poverty, Remi is happy in the loving care of his mother. The story takes off when the Barbarins get so poor that Jerome decides to sell Remi to a traveling artist group led by the stern Vitalis, and we follow Remi's adventures, which are like a roller-coaster of happiness and sadness.
Remi is a warm-hearted gentle boy with a positive outlook on life despite everything that happens to him. I cried my eyes out at times, both when I was young and now that I saw it again. Somebody here called it a children's telenovela, and it really is like that.
This show made a deep impression on me as a child. It is well-paced, taking the time for each character to develop. It is animated beautifully. Just watching the landscapes is fantastic and they have such a great way of animating Remi's dreams and thoughts.
I would definitely recommend this anime, both for children and adults. It teaches life lessons, but without the lessons getting tiresome or being too obvious.
The story is based on a book by Hector Malot. It is set in France and is about an abandoned boy, Remi, who is raised in a poor family by sweet mother Barbarin and not-so-sweet father Jerome Barbarin, who luckily isn't home very often and works elsewhere. Despite their poverty, Remi is happy in the loving care of his mother. The story takes off when the Barbarins get so poor that Jerome decides to sell Remi to a traveling artist group led by the stern Vitalis, and we follow Remi's adventures, which are like a roller-coaster of happiness and sadness.
Remi is a warm-hearted gentle boy with a positive outlook on life despite everything that happens to him. I cried my eyes out at times, both when I was young and now that I saw it again. Somebody here called it a children's telenovela, and it really is like that.
This show made a deep impression on me as a child. It is well-paced, taking the time for each character to develop. It is animated beautifully. Just watching the landscapes is fantastic and they have such a great way of animating Remi's dreams and thoughts.
I would definitely recommend this anime, both for children and adults. It teaches life lessons, but without the lessons getting tiresome or being too obvious.
As hard as life
zenrein7 October 2020
I had watched a few episodes of Remi as a child, I just remembered it as a sad story. Now as an adult I realized how mature and compelling story this is. So harsh and full of pain and death and suffering but at the same time joy and happiness at times...just like LIFE. One need to take decisions and be smart and never lose courage to keep going and always look forward.
It is incredible this was a "children cartoon", it is not as simple as that: "bad" people don't get punishment, there is injustice and pain, good people are not rewarded and things just happen, again, just like LIFE.
Life and Humanity
firasalghanim19 December 2020
I watched this series when I was a kid, maybe 40 years ago. Full of sensations of all types; joy, sad, anger, lost, desperate, happy, etc. It's human nature and real life. Kids won't get all this, because they care more about simple things like the fun of animals and nice songs; but see it again when you get older and more mature, and I guarantee that you'll cry with tears in every episode. We're humans and those touchy unfair events of life must affect us deeply.
One more thing, it's really sad how our children are now raised watching silly cartoons with no morale or real humanity values; just crap of offensive, sarcastic, and greed stories.
One more thing, it's really sad how our children are now raised watching silly cartoons with no morale or real humanity values; just crap of offensive, sarcastic, and greed stories.
A mature story for All.
iota_20305 September 2020
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