Huckleberry no Bōken (ハックルベリィの冒険) is a Japanese anime television series based on the 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain that aired on the Fuji Television network every Friday evening from January 2, 1976 to June 25 of the same year, for a total of 26 episodes. It is the first of two Huckleberry Finn anime. A second Huck Finn television series was made in 1994, Huckleberry Finn Monogatari.[1]
A feature-length English dub of this series was made in the early 1980s, and broadcast on cable TV in the United States.[2]
The English-dubbed version for the episodic TV version of Huckleberry Finn was owned by Saban Entertainment in 1993. As with most of the programming library and properties of Saban Entertainment and Fox Children's Productions, the rights to this series is now owned by Disney Enterprises through BVS Entertainment, who acquired the Fox Kids Worldwide franchise in Summer 2001.
Some episodes of Saban's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were released on Region 2 DVD by Maximum Entertainment Ltd. in the 2000s. However, there were no plans to release the English dub version of the series on Region 1 DVD.
Masako Nozawa, who played Huckleberry, later played the main character Tom in the 1980 anime adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, also originally written by Mark Twain (broadcast on the same station's World Masterpiece Theater), and went on to star in two other works originally written by Twain. Huckleberry also appeared in the anime as Tom's friend, played by Kazuyo Aoki.
Plot summary
At the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglas in return for saving her life. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in some respects a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the widow attempts to "civilize" the newly rich Huck.
Huck is kidnapped by his father but manages to fake his own death and escape to Jackson's Island, where he coincidentally meets up with Jim, a slave of the Widow Douglas' sister, Miss Watson. Jim is running for freedom because he has found out that Miss Watson plans to "sell him South" for $800. Together they construct a raft and travel on the Mississippi River,[3] Jim hoping for freedom from slavery, and Huck searching freedom from his drunk father and controlling foster parent.
^Vintage Toledo TV - CBN Ads page featuring an advertisement for a Sunday-night showing of Huckleberry Finn on CBN cable in 1984. From the promotional artwork used, this is the 1976 anime version condensed into feature length.
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