Ulysses 31, a Televised Re-interpretation of Homer’s Classic Myth

This paper gives an overview of the animated series Ulysses 31 (1981), a French-Japanese co-production based on the epic poem The Odyssey, which introduced children and young audiences to Greek myths, relocating the original narratives into futuristic contexts such as the 31^st century.

Twenty-five years later Ulysses 31 remains a cult series, however it is also largely unknown since the images it invokes are buried in the memories of childhood. Although the series substitutes the wooden ships with spacecrafts crossing the universe of Olympus, Ulysses 31 manages to capture some of the original relationships within Homer’s thesis, in spite of their eccentric portrait. The heavy use of pastiche takes us back to the 1980s and the emergence of the ‘new’ fantasy-driven science fiction cinema; thus it is important to examine and discuss the series’ employment of futurist aesthetics and technology in its exposé of classic mythology.

Ulysses 31 is a good example of a successful series from that period. Employing traditional animation throughout -such as painting on cells, cut-outs and the use of the multiplane camera- the art of the series offers a distinctive style that would be virtually impossible to reproduce through more recent technology. This paper will examine this aesthetic and compare it to similar shows from that period in order to locate its place in ‘the future past’.

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