Trivia / Future Boy Conan

• Anime First: In April 1978, Noboru Sakaoka published a short manga of the series in the 小学三年生 magazine.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Dongoroth was voiced by the Peru-born American actor Luis Accinelli, who, besides having done Spanish dubs, had also worked in live-action TV, both in Spanish and English, including Univision's TV series Pepe Plata as Alfonso, and The Heartbreak Kid as Manuel, and having done English voice acting in The Real Ghostbusters as Quetzalcoatl. This dub aired on Univision in the U.S.
• Disowned Adaptation: Back when the compilation film was being made, some staff sent a VHS tape with some early animation to Alexander Key, the writer for the book the series is based on, and his family, as a courtesy. However, Key hated the show and the changes Miyazaki and the other staff made so much that he told his estate to never allow the anime to come over in the United States, threatening to sue anyone who ever attempted to do so. Key died shortly afterward. Several decades later, GKids and Anime Limited managed to license the show in North America and the United Kingdom with the Key estate's permission (the dub credits include the copyright statement for The Incredible Tide, which their opening credits state as the series' inspiration.)
• Dueling Dubs: In English, there are the Animax dub for South and Southeast Asia and the Ocean Group dub released by GKids in North America and Anime Limited in the UK. There was also an apparently abortive attempt by Los Angeles-base outfit Intersound (known for dubbing many other Nippon Animation works) to dub Conan for the U.S. in the 1980s; some very short clips of this dub are available on YouTube.
• Late Export for You: This series is very popular and well-regarded in just about every corner of the world - except in English-speaking North America, where it is little known despite being a Miyazaki work. It wasn't released in North America in English until 2021, when GKids released the show on Blu-ray with not only a 4K restoration (sourced from a recent Japanese re-release), but a brand new English dub. It had previously aired in Spanish on Univision in the U.S. (Anime Limited in the U.K. released 4K Ultra HD discs of the series in 2022, something which North America did not get and making it the first 4K release of the series anywhere in the world.) This is at least the third attempt at dubbing the series into English, but the first to actually see the light of day in North America.
• Referenced by...: In Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, a flashback reveals that Asakusa's longtime interest in animation stemmed from a childhood viewing of Conan of the Lost Island, which is modeled after Future Boy Conan. In the anime adaptation, she and Mizusaki also share an Imagine Spot inspired by the series.

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