Ulysses 31

• Japanese: 宇宙伝説ユリシーズ31サーティーワン, Hepburn: Uchū Densetsu Yurishīzu Sātīwan; lit. Space Legend Ulysses 31, French: Ulysse 31
• Created by Nina Wolmark and Jean Chalopin
• Written by Nina Wolmark and Jean Chalopin
• Directed by Tadao Nagahama and Jean Chalopin
• October 10, 1981 to April 3, 1982
• Based on the Greek mythology of Odysseus

Voice Cast

• Ulysses-Matt Birman
• Telemachus-Adrian Knight
• Yumi-Anick Faris
• Nono-Howard Ryshpan
• Zeus-Vlasta Vrána
• Shirka-Kelly Ricard

In the far future Ulysses, commander of the giant spaceship Odyssey, and his crew struggle against the Gods of Olympus who have left them lost in the cosmos.

Ulysses 31 is an early 80s cartoon that should’ve been right up my alley at the time. Heavy on fantasy and science-fiction yet I do not recall it. To me this is odd because there were plenty of animated offerings I knew of but never watched. My first memory of it is a YouTube suggestion for the opening credits.

Given it came about in ’81 you can see the clear Star Wars influences. Then again, it was the big dog at the time. I can also see hints of it influencing things down the road like The Transformers: The Movie or even live action genre material.

The character designs are quite imaginative and the general animation is just great. This is coming out of the 80s when not all animation was as fluid as today but shows could still be good. Much of this I say still holds up today in that light. 

The theme song has a very early European rock sound to it. High energy with that accent of the non-American, non-native English speaker. The series sound design of the series is that older style bordering on unrealistic. Crashes and explosions are done more to drive home the fantasy feel than sound realistic making this clearly more of a space opera.

If you have a passing knowledge of The Odyssey, you will certainly see how this show is a changed version of that. Events are given just enough of a science-fiction twist for kids but otherwise very little difference. Mixed in with that are ‘80s television necessities of teaching lessons to the kiddies. Not necessarily as obvious as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe but still there to a viewing adult.

The problem with this show is that if you know anything about The Odyssey, you know how each episode is going to go. That has its pluses and minuses. It takes out surprise. There is no thrill or sense of adventure. Another weakness is each episode is self-contained. There is the overarching thread of the cast trying to get home but beyond that events rarely if ever bleed over from one episode to the next. There may be the lament of not being able to get home and being lost, but what happened in episode three is not a topic of discussion in episode four. Not unexpected for the time though and something viewers then would overlook.

Lack of merchandise tie-ins aside, I’m not sure why Ulysses 31 isn’t better known beyond a core group of animation enthusiasts. I don’t think it was necessarily ahead of its time. It also wasn’t inferior to many other stuff that was out then. It tried to be a little more mature. I think maybe because there was no feeling that they were making progress on traveling home. The Autobots or G.I. Joe may never have soundly beaten their enemies, but they still generated a sense of accomplishments.

Cobra was a vast terrorist organization, so one battle wasn’t necessarily enough to knock it down. Skeletor was an evil sorcerer, so stopping his latest plot was not enough to end his reign of terror. And if you paid attention at all Decepticons controlled an entire planet and possibly then some. They were weak because their energy reserves were lo but stopping that one scheme wouldn’t stop them completely.

Ulysses 31 has good animation and was a good idea that just didn’t quite work. As far as I know there’s no physical release available at least in the US, but you can find episodes streaming for free in various forms on YouTube.