For Madhouse, its own coproduced versions of Gamba, Treasure Island, Botchan and Nobody’s Boy Remi are the spiritual predecessors of what’s to come for what will be called the Madhouse Classics line.
The Adventures of Grichka, based on a series consisting of four books, is quite popular in its native country of France, as well as Spain, Germany, Italy and Portugal. All four of the book based mini seasons will have about 13 episodes each. Its titular character is Grichka, a mixed Selkup-Russian boy.
The Wild White Stallion, based on its eponymous source material by a Frenchman, is to be an up and coming adaptation to an internationally underrated gem of a novel, which already has a live action film adaptation released decades earlier. Its main focus is on a slowly growing relationship between a Hispano Romani boy called Falco and a Camargue stallion called White Mane.
The other lines will compete with Madhouse Classics.
The Pierrot Super Pulp Theatre and its companion Kids Classics have quite a lot of mostly sea, jungle and forest focused stories.
Although created by Rene Guillot, The Village Brave, based on Prince of the Jungle, is a considerably less violent story than its companion Junglee Manchhe. Its titular character is Raanji (Raani in the book), the nephew of two murdered spiritual advisors in a Karbi village of Assam. A filthy treacherous rival largely tries his best to out compete him, but let’s not be obvious about it until he gets attacked himself in a bloody manner.
Coming up is a new take on the urban legend of Hunterwali, created by the late Wadia brothers from Surat in Gujarat, India. Unlike its rather more prejudiced previous sources, it is a mix of different sensibilities, Swahili mythology and East African girl power in general. It also has a possible sequel focusing on Hunterwali’s tomboy daughter, who is herself a heroine in her own right.
I wonder if a new version of the Zimbo story is coming up in the future, but it’s way too unlikely because of how big the cultural and linguistic barriers between India and Japan are. First of all, there’s the increasing possibility of a radical Zimbo redesign, which not only takes cues from two films called Adavi Donga and other sources (in other words, the Zimbo ‘99 and Junglee Manchhe films), but also stands out from the older designs, which often veer a bit too much towards unintended retroactive plagiarism.
The Tezuka Productions Jungle Stories has Ki-GOR and the starring Tezuka classics, Jungle Emperor Leo and the Jungle Kingdom. Although the latter predated both Tezuka classics by about eleven to twelve years, Jungle Emperor Leo is more popular in the long term than the other two.
Ki-Gor, loosely compiled from short stories written by John M Reynolds and the Drummond Gang, focuses on the story of a streetwise Irish bandit in the Kibale corridor. Tralee born Robin Kildare, Aka Ki-Gor, lost his missionary parents to horrid amounts of corruption in the area where they studied. As he grew older, he steadily made friends with a crowd of jungle animals nearby. Later on, nouveau riche Helen crashed into the scene and had to flee away from a trio of fashion robbers, once they found out about her snappy fashion sense.
An interlude called the Jungle Kingdom, set between Jungle Emperor Leo and the former, will be about the corridor’s savannah and jungle animals embarking on various adventures throughout their lands.
In the longer term, Ki-Gor can be a dynastic saga about a jungle-raised bandit, his tomboy wife and their offspring in a more continuity-driven (but still flexible) plot which involves the schemes of different villains. It is also an early modern feminist fantasy, since Ann is not only regarded as a true co-star of the whole book series, but also one of the more proactive pre-1960s jungle heroes by far.
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