Future Boy Conan

Lore & Background

Conan builds a raft to rescue Lana after his grandfather is killed. He meets Jimsy, a semi-feral boy, and together they attempt to raid the Barracuda. They are captured and forced into labor, eventually brought to Industria. There, the situation deteriorates under the tyrannical Director Lepka, who stages a coup and seeks to deploy a super-weapon. The group locates Dr. Lao, restores solar power, evacuates Industria before a cataclysmic earthquake, and destroys the super-weapon. Nature recovers, and Conan and Lana set sail to build a new world.

Reader's Guide

Future Boy Conan is significant as an early post-apocalyptic anime that explores themes of environmental collapse, technological hubris, and human resilience. It adapts Alexander Key's novel into a 26-episode series that aired on NHK in 1978, influencing later works in the genre. The series contrasts the simple, nature-based life of Remnant Island with the industrialized, caste-based dystopia of Industria, highlighting the dangers of unchecked power and the potential for redemption. Characters like Conan, Lana, and Jimsy develop through their encounters with selflessness and adversity, while the antagonist Lepka remains irredeemable. The series also features a spin-off, Future Boy Conan II: Taiga Adventure, which aired in 1999–2000. Its legacy lies in its portrayal of a world recovering from catastrophe and the hope embodied by its young protagonists.

Did You Know?

• The series is an adaptation of Alexander Key's 1970 novel The Incredible Tide.
• Conan was born in 2016 on Remnant Island.

Origins and Production History

Future Boy Conan, also known by the alternate title Conan, The Boy in Future, is a Japanese post-apocalyptic science fiction anime series. It draws its narrative from the 1970 American science-fiction novel The Incredible Tide, written by Alexander Key. The original adaptation was broadcast on NHK General TV, airing twenty-six episodes between April and October 1978. The series marked a notable entry in the landscape of Japanese animated television of that era, bringing a bleak, post-cataclysmic vision to a general-audience slot. Its story of survival, isolation, and the rebuilding of civilization set it apart from many of its contemporaries. The franchise's life extended well beyond that initial run: nearly two decades later, a spin-off series called Future Boy Conan II: Taiga Adventure was produced for TBS, delivering twenty-four episodes from October 1999 through April 2000. This second installment carried the world and its themes into a new generation of viewers, confirming the enduring appeal of the original premise.

The World After the Cataclysm

The narrative opens in July 2008, when a devastating war waged with ultra-magnetic weapons of unprecedented destructive power reshapes the planet. The Earth is knocked off its axis, its crust violently displaced, and the continents are torn apart and plunge beneath the ocean. A desperate attempt to evacuate humanity into outer space ends in disaster: the vessels are driven back and crash onto a small, arid island. The survivors, initially in despair, discover that the impact has ruptured a freshwater source, and over time they establish a modest, family-like community they call Remnant Island. By October 2016, a baby named Conan is born into this isolated group. As the original crew members age and die in their seclusion, Conan grows up knowing only the sea, the island, and his adoptive grandfather, entirely unaware that other human settlements still exist beyond the horizon.

Industria and the Struggle for Power

Beyond Conan's isolated island lies Industria, a remnant of the old industrial civilization that has barely survived by carefully rationing the output of a backup nuclear reactor. Its economy has devolved into a rigid caste system, and its people are desperate for energy. The key to their survival, and the key to rebuilding the world, is a highly concentrated orbital solar power system, but access to it has been lost after Dr. Lao, its creator, went into hiding to prevent his research from being weaponized yet again. Industria's leadership, embodied by the ruthless Director, pursues power at any cost. The island's economy also depends on a cruel trade: the crew of the sailing ship Barracuda regularly visits a nearby island where impoverished, war-traumatized locals mine plastic waste, which Industria converts back into oil, paying them only in trinkets, alcohol, and surrogate cigarettes. This system of exploitation and the Director's growing dictatorship form the central antagonistic force of the story.

Bonds, Journey, and a New Beginning

Conan's life transforms when he discovers Lana, an 11-year-old girl from High Harbor, washed up unconscious on his beach. She is the first person of his own age he has ever encountered, and their bond deepens from curiosity into a pure, reciprocal love. Lana carries a telepathic link to her grandfather Dr. Lao and even to birds, particularly a tern named Tikki. When Industria's crew locates Lana and kills Conan's grandfather, the boy builds a simple raft and sets out across the unknown ocean to rescue her. Along the way he befriends Jimsy, a semi-feral boy from a plastic-mining island. Together they are captured, forced into labor, and repeatedly separated and reunited as Industria descends further into tyranny. Ultimately, the group locates Dr. Lao, restores solar power, evacuates Industria before a final cataclysmic earthquake, and destroys the super-weapon the Director intended to use to dominate all remaining lands. With the last instrument of the apocalyptic civilization destroyed, nature resumes its healing, new families form, and Conan and Lana sail onward to build a world that preserves only what was good in the past.