KAZOKU ROBINSON HYOURYUUKI: FUSHIGI NA SHIMA NO FLONE

DESCRIPTION

CAST

REVIEWS

• 

  Flueckli

  80/100
  A Swiss family shipwrecks and fights together for their survival on an uninhabited island. A story full of value.

  Introduction/Blurb (Includes minor spoilers)
  The 50 episodes of the series revolve around the journey of the swiss family robinson, who sets out to their journey from Switzerland to Australia. On their way, the ship, which should have brought them to Australia, gets destroyed due to a storm so that they have to flee to an uninhabited island. While they’re fighting for their survival, they face many hardships, for which their previous life didn’t prepare them. Nonetheless, the family tries not to lose hope and keeps on supporting each other.

  Background/Relations:
  
  The story is loosely based on the novel Swiss Family Robinson (Original title: Der Schweizerische Robinson), which was first published in 1812, by the Swiss author Johann David Wyss. Originally being published in German, the novel was already two years later translated to English, since then it has become one of the most popular books of all time.

  

  Title-page of the first edition of Der schweizerische Robinson (Zürich, 1812)

  Not only centers the story about a Swiss family and them supporting each other, the novel has also been created by a Swiss family - the Wyss family - working together on it. While Johann David Wyss wrote the story, one of his sons Johann Emmanuel Wyss illustrated the book and - one of his other sons - Johann Rudolf Wyss edited it.

  Johann Emmanuel Wyss is also known for writing the text of the Swiss national anthem in 1811 as part of a war song collection, to keep up the hopes and mood of Swiss soldiers and people. It was officially adopted as the Swiss national anthem in 1848. Back then, the tune of the song was the same as the British tune of God save the Queen, a tune widely being adapted by others during that time. This often led to confusing situations when both countries’ anthems were played and was therefore replaced in 1861.

  Johann David Wyss has been described as an author whose style was "firmly Christian and moral in tone". There are also many underlying tones of Christianity throughout the original book and in the case of many of the included characters and their morals, which isn’t that surprising with regard to his occupation, originally being a Swiss pastor.

  Jules Gabriel Verne, who is a major literary author in France and Europe of the literary avant-garde and surrealism, declared that the Swiss Family Robinson was one of his favourite books. In 1900, the Castaways of the Flag was published by him - set as a sequel to the work of Johann David Wyss.

  The original novel was intended to teach his four sons about family values, good husbandry, the uses of the natural world and self-reliance. Many chapters involve Christian-oriented moral lessons such as frugality, husbandry, acceptance and cooperation. Furthermore, there is a need to mention, that the book presents a geographically impossible array of large animals and plants that probably could never have existed together on a single island, for the children's education, nourishment, clothing and convenience of the story.

  Wyss presents adventures as lessons in natural history and physical science. This resembles other educational books for young ones published about the same time, like Charlotte Turner Smith's Rural Walks: in Dialogues intended for the use of Young Persons (1795), Rambles Farther: A continuation of Rural Walks (1796) and A Natural History of Birds, intended chiefly for young persons (1807).
  Another big influence was taken by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, an adventure story about a shipwrecked sailor first published in 1719 and the source of the "Robinson" in the title "Swiss Family Robinson" after which Wyss modelled the story of the shipwrecked Swiss family.

  Although movie and television adaptations typically name the family "Robinson", it is not a Swiss name. The German title translates as The Swiss Robinson which identifies the novel to be part of the Robinsonade genre, rather than a story about a family named Robinson. Within the story of the novel, the surname of the family also isn’t mentioned.

  Since the wide success the novel has had, many adaptions, sequels and alternative versions have been published in many different forms like book sequels, audio adaptions, TV movies, television series and even such works as comic book series, a stage adaption, a computer adventure game, a parody and the here reviewed anime series The Swiss Family Robinson: Flone of the Mysterious Island (家族ロビンソン漂流記 ふしぎな島のフローネ - Kazoku Robinson Hyōryūki Fushigi na Shima no Furōne) being produced by Nippon animation and which originally aired from January 4th until December 27th in 1981.

  Biggest differences to the original work (based on research)
  As being loosely based on Wyss’ story the anime also shares some of the impossible array of flora and fauna. Also the female character flone is not present in the original novel – there the family only consists of a father, the mother and four sons (the same amount of kids, which Wyss had himself). Nippon animation likely took the decision to introduce Flone to the story to attract more female viewers to the series. Also some other details have been changed as the name and age of two sons respectively, etc.
  The anime has also been published as part of the World Masterpiece Theater series and is one of the few of those, which have even been dubbed into the English language for the American Market. An English dub by PMT, Ltd, titled Swiss Family Robinson, aired on The Family Channel cable network in the U.S. in 1989. This dub renames Flone "Becca" as well as her older brother Franz "Fritz". It can currently be seen on the Smile of a Child network and Amazon Prime video.

  Wiki sources & links:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swiss_Family_Robinson:_Flone_of_the_Mysterious_Island
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swiss_Family_Robinson
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_David_Wyss
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufst_du,_mein_Vaterland
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Psalm
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castaways_of_the_Flag
  https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2018/01/the-adventures-of-the-swiss-family-robinson.html
  https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/johann-david-wyss_here-s-to-you--swiss-family-robinson/43815434

  My perspective/Wrap-Up
  Unfortunately, I haven’t yet read the original novel the Swiss family robinson, so I cannot make any comments on how well the anime series has been adapted from the original work to the anime series. Which means, that the comments made are based from some research done on the novel and wiki sources, instead. To me the above-mentioned topics of the original work (ie. family values, the uses of the natural world and self-reliance as well as frugality, husbandry, acceptance and cooperation) have been adapted to the anime series in a well-fitting manner. As it goes for the Christian-themed values – obvious religious practices are not shown at all or shown to a little degree in the series, which makes the series even nowadays easy to watch and is therefore not overbearing with it. It is more about some values, which are still helpful nowadays. As being born as Swiss person myself and still living in Switzerland, I can make some comments on the behaviour from the family and the few scenes, which portray places from Switzerland, though. To me, the behaviour of the family seemed very natural/normal and I can clearly see Swiss people exactly acting with the same behaviour, especially if we take into account that the series has been released more or less about 40 years ago. I also really liked the introduction to Bern – where the family lived before they set out to their journey-, that was given at the very beginning of the series, it seemed really fitting to me – even nowadays.

  I enjoyed watching the series a lot, although I didn’t expect it to be that intense and emotional as some parts and scenes were set up. The target audience is surely set for children, but as it shows various points of views and decisions to take from different positions (children vs adults) it sets out to be an enjoyable series even for the whole family. Also, as some scenes are intense (but usually with importance to the series) I even would recommend to watch it as a family experience, if one has children.

  The Swiss Family Robinson: Flone of the Mysterious Island is for sure an anime series worth to watch with lots of values included, from whose many people could still learn more than one or two things for their own life - even if they don’t shipwreck on a deserted island.

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