Chiisana Ahiru no Ooki na Ai no Monogatari: Ahiru no Kwak

Ahiru no Quack, or better known as Alfred J. Kwak is a dutch anime aimed at kids.
But unlike most cartoons aimed at kids, Alfred J. Kwak features lots of mature and mostly sad the,es. Amongst others it deals with various social and political issues, like abuse, or power. Even with all these negative themes, the shows about important values too, like friendship, family and solidarity.

The anime is notable for the political themes on which it points a highlight. In the anime ...our main protagonist fights a evil fascist dictator, takes in refugees, saves whales against hunter and even oversees the changeover of his country from ... an sbolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.

Such themes are far from typical in a children'sanime, and form a big part of Alfred J. Kwak's appeal. Other episodes have satirised the Japanese love of golf, and criticised countries which have sharp north/south economic divides.

The story settles around a duck, some time after birth Alfred loses his parents and sisters, and is raised by a mole, which was a good friend of his parent. Together they wind up in lots of different adventures, fun adventures, but even so, very dangerous one's.

What's nice is that Alfred actually grows up, from a small kid, at the end of the show, he's an adult duck. In most kid's shows the characters don't age/or at least mature.

The art is simple, but astonishing beautiful, it has this old style which really appeals to kids, and yet, me too. I've seen the series as I was a kid, here on television, but I can still enjoy it when I put (the tapes) on. I've seen the anime in different versions, the original (dutch), japanese, german, english etc. etc. And most of the times the audio sfx's stay the same, which is good.

The characters are magnificent, we got Alfred, the duck. Who lives in a giant glog-shaped house.Then we got a mole who takes care of the duck.
Dolf, the leader of the bad organization "National Crows' Party", who resembles Adolf Hitler. Then we get a "black" duck, who's a refugee and Alfred's girlfriend, a polar bear who's a scientist, we even got a stork and a magpie as cool characters.

We've got lots of animals, who resemble or potrait cool, funny, evil and most of all, fun people (or just) fictional beings. For kids it's highly enjoyable, if you like serious anime's with a small touch of kids view, this is what you need to see.

This anime is liberal indoctrination propaganda.
I was no more than two years old when I started watching this anime.
I wasn't even a weeb yet and already I had seen my first anime.
But after re-visiting this anime (it is an anime and nobody believes it, but that's the truth) I found that many of it's themes were racist reductionist simplifications and some quite offensive.
That koala with the heavy accent for instance.
Also, sometimes I wonder what van Veen must have been smoking or if he was on some sort of elephant drugs. Because I'm pretty sure there is no clown living on the moon. People think this ... anime is deep and dark because it re-enacts the Nazi occupation in a really cartoonish way. (pun intended)
I think it's mostly absurdist and childish.
Do I still like this anime? yeah it was oke.
Pico bello!

Judging by the picture in the front page, this series appears to be a typical fairy tale with cute animals and cheery stories. Well… IT ISN’T! It’s a grim story, dressed in bright colors and light humor.

Here is the premise. The protagonist is a naive duckling. While playing happily, it goes away and escapes its mother’s attention. This saved its life, as a rich animal inside a luxurious car RUNS OVER ITS ENTIRE FAMILY! The rich bastard simply says, “I’m too rich to care” and keeps driving WITHOUT EVEN SLOWING DOWN!
Later, the duckling is looking for its family, but it doesn’t find them (thank God). ... It is found and taken cared by other animals and things start to get better. But the entire universe is simply out to get our tragic hero. A kleptomaniac friend of its, steals a jewel and “accidentally” drops it on the duckling’s head.
“Look! The duckling that dumped its family is the thief! What a bad animal you are. Shame on you!”
“But I…”
“Shut up! The universe says you are never to be proven right!”
And something similar like this keeps happening to the duckling over and over throughout the rest of the story…

If Bambi’s dead mother is the limit in cruelty, this series goes off the charts. It’s so mentally scaring for children (I was only 10 when I watched it and it gave me nightmares about the poor duckling looking for its dismembered family). And the whole “everyone is out to make your life miserable” attitude is miseryporn from a point on, like watching ReZero or Rainbow. It is supposed to be ironic and humorous but it only feels petty and cruel. You could see it as a variant of Oliver Touist but it will still feel overbearing.

Yet, this is the same reason why the series stands out among most anime for kids. If you keep watching, you will actually see a story where there are dozens of references to Fascism, Apartheid and European monarchy. Really, it isn’t a typical children’s story with simple good guys and bad guys in some magical fairyland. It is in fact portraying the modern times of our world in a very sad way. I don’t say I like the way it presents all that (deaths and malicious acts on part of the bad guys) but it is trying a lot more than your typical fairytale (it’s eons more sinister that the average stupid villains who never kill in typical cartoons).

The duckling’s tragic story makes it interesting for a while, but all its naivety and Diavolo Ex Machina blaming gets to your nerves pretty soon. Still, that duckling matures a lot as a character. We watch him grow older, get a girlfriend and take part in an uprising against Fascism, Apartheid and other forms of malicious acts. Quite a lot for kiddies to grasp, right?

Then there’s the villain of the story, who is pretty much half a dozen infamous historical figures in one body. From Hitler, to Napoleon, to Godfather, to greedy faceless oil company suits, he causes more harm and death than Cobra Commander and General Havoc ever did during their endless terrorist armies in old cartoons. And in far more sinister ways too! He looks like a silly crow and yet he is evil incarnate. Plus, he has a backdrop story that excuses his behavior. He was not “born evil”.

Still, it is true that after a while they act in silly ways and the end-result is a happy ending to a sad story. It’s not trying to be miserable all the way to the end, the same way Ranking of Kings flipped over anything it was building in its first half. The rest of the cast is not as great as these two so it’s an issue if you have to watch the whole series without strong support characters. Also, yeah, cute little animals don’t deserve such treatment. Not even in fiction.