Reviews

This was a pretty consistently engrossing series. I actually found it harder and harder to compare with the other adaptations of Treasure Island I've seen as I went through it because this really felt like it was charting its own course, much for the better. I may have known the broad swings of the story, but elements like Jim and Silver's relationship were given some pretty deep nuance here, and there was a lot more to enjoy out of the secondary cast. There's a very strong visual presentation, particularly for its time, as well as the music it uses, all of which add up to a package that I think a lot of modern anime could not match for style. At times, this gave me Ghibli vibes, but with a much reduced fantasy element and more focus on the high flying adventures of pirates, sailors and treasure hunters that still was grounded in the realities of this kind of conflict. Some of the plot twists and turns were a bit unbelievable, but gives those moments so much strong atmosphere and visual style that it's hard to hold that against it. I thought they could have done more to examine characters like Trelawney, Livesey and Smollett, but given the size of the cast, I think they did pretty well with all the motivations and background, albeit some of that came very late (e.g. Gray). There was more substance here than I was expecting, and I'm happy to walk away satisfied.