Ulysses 31 - Liner Notes from the Japanese BGM Collection OST (Part 2)

A continuation of the liner notes included in the insert booklet of the vinyl release for the Japanese Ulysses 31 BGM Collection OST. This post will focus on the comments of Tatsuo Ikeuchi, a producer on Ulysses 31.

Thanks to Windii for translating.

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Memories of Ulysses 31
(Producer: Tatsuo Ikeuchi)

I remember that my first encounter with the Ulysses 31 project was in the early summer of 1979, in Paris, where the white flowers of the horse chestnuts were in bloom. When I heard about this project from the staff in France, I honestly remember that I could not help but feel a certain excitement. It is a science fiction version of Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey, the story of the wandering adventures of the hero Ulysses set in the Aegean Sea after the Trojan War, transposed to the 31st century. The story of Ulysses' return to Earth from planet Troy, where he is caught up in the Olympian sphere of influence controlled by Zeus, and is forced to fight against the gods, but overcomes them and returns home—the plan to create an animated TV series as a French-Japanese co-production seemed to me to be a groundbreaking and fresh idea among the Japanese TV animation projects at that time.

About a year later, after many twists and turns along the way, the 26-episode series was completed and became a big hit on the French national broadcaster Antenne 2. I believe that the fact that the story was relatively faithful to Greek mythology and the space adventure drama was based on the love between father and son, Ulysses and his son Telemachus, made it a hit in Europe. But unfortunately, Greek mythology itself is not so common in Japan. The passion for Ulysses that the French and Japanese staff have had for the past six or seven years has been the driving force behind the creation of the Japanese language version. We hope that as many people as possible will be able to see it.

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Random thought: I wonder if the lack of popularity of Greek mythology in Japan is the reason why it took so long for the anime to hit Japan...