Mysterious Cities of Gold (2)

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about the new Mysterious Cities of Gold-series and the expectations I had for it so now I would like to point out the parts that probably gonna bug me, but if the story holds up I will probably not care that much.

First of the animation itself. Not bad at first glance. Much more vibrant and colorful than the original according to me, the problem though that bugs me is that at certain points it feels... stilted? It almost hacks during the action scenes making it feel unnatural (or more correctly out of place). Minor point and could be due to Youtube or something like that.

Second, the music. Listen to the background music of the trailer and then listen to this:

Biggest difference is the synthesizers in the original. The new one also seems to favor an orchestra. Not bad music, but it doesn't seems the same (and I hardly believe Haim Saban and Shucki Levy are doing the music which is a shame). Another thing is that it doesn't have the Inca or spanish feel the original had, although to be fair it would probably be more asian influenced since it's actually where the story takes place. Last thing is that it also is to early to say with just a trailer.

Thirdly and last... not the same voice actors. Yes, I know it's in french, but let be honest. The english dub isn't gonna be the same and it will annoy me for a bit and it's something no one can do anything about since all the actors are to old to sound like they used to. At least if you go by the special from the DVD box where they have the actors for the kids and Mendoza:

Then again, watching this I would probably if anything want Mendoza and Zia to be on it again, but I wouldn't mind the others as well, but that was in 2007, who knows how Howard Ryshpan (the voice actor for Mendoza) is doing today.

Still just nitpicks. If the story is fine it doesn't matter that much as long as they don't do something horrible bad in the voice acting department. And before I forget again, Kokapetl the green parrot is also appearing so that rounds up the protagonists.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold

Back again and what is the special occasion? The Mysterious Cities of Gold... SEASON 2. AWESOME!!! Ehum, got a bit carried away. Quick check trough the archive tells me I haven't spoken that much about the series (maybe a relief after my over observation of a certain game series). So now I got a subject to talk about again. First of, the reason for this peaked interest is this trailer (*WARNING* Contain ending spoiler for the original series):

It gets you pumped does it not? Finally, after 30 years we get the continuing saga and all the characters are there. We get Esteban, Zia, Tao, Mendoza, Sancho and Pedro for the main cast and a cameo from Mayuka (the old man in blue that opened the stone temple for the man in red in the beginning, or at least I think its him since they look the same although Mayuka only appeared in one episode, ep. 13 for those interested, and was trapped in Machu Picchu).  The interesting parts is that the setting begins once again in Barcelona, Spain like the original series, but instead of continuing west we go to the east, China. We also get a main villain right from the start (or so it seems, the first season didn't give us the main antagonists until the last 11 episodes although we had adversaries stalking the heroes during the whole course but they were just greedy).

And then it's the Golden Condor:

 The only thing I remember from this series as a child was how they found the Condor in episode 17, climbing on the top of it. My parents didn't understand what I talked about and believed I dreamt it all up and so it could have been until one night when I was seventeen (I'm just guessing, I don't remember when exactly) my dad wakes me up after he went through our VHS collection (the link is for those young enough that doesn't know what an VHS-tape is) and found the very last episode of the series. A half hour later I sat with tears in my eyes as the dramatic ending transpired before me, without knowing the full story it still felt in my heart. Will this season come even close to the original or will it fall flat? Probably have to wait till the english dub comes out next year or something like that, but I will gladly wait for the moment.