3000 Leagues in Search of Mother
- ️Thu Oct 12 2017
Many years ago a Genoese lad of thirteen, the son of a workingman, went from Genoa to America all alone to seek his mother.
— Opening line of the original Dagli Appennines Alle Andes story
3000 Leagues in Search of Mother (母をたずねて三千里; Haha o Tazunete Sanzenri) is a Japanese anime television series directed by Isao Takahata as part of World Masterpiece Theater's series. The anime ran from January 4, 1976 to December 26, 1976, ending at 52 episodes.
It is loosely based on a small part of the novel Cuore (1886) created by Edmondo De Amicis, specifically the chapter From the Apennines to the Andes (Dagli Appennini alle Ande)note .
Set in 1881, the story follows an Italian 8-year-old boy named Marco Rossi, who lives with his family in the port city of Genoa during very harsh economic times. His father Pietro, mother Anna and his brother Tonio, work hard and do their best but they barely can make it month by month. After much consideration, Anna takes a fateful decision: go to Argentina, in South America, and work there to send remittances to her husband and children. Marco is broken, because he loves his mother, but makes his peace with it nonetheless - after all, Anna promises to always write once a month.
For a full year, Anna never misses a correspondence, but soon her letters stop arriving. And nobody knows what's going on. Since Anna's last letters imply that she had fallen gravely sick, Marco decides to go to Argentina himself and see what's going on and rescue her. With his brother's pet monkey Amedeo in tow, Marco boards a ship and leaves his homeland, determined to cross every boundary in sight to find his mother.
3000 Leagues in Search of Mother has examples of:
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Tropes #-L
- Adaptation Expansion:
- The basis for the series is a mere chapter of the book Cuore by the Italian writer Edmondo D'Amici, so the series itself takes the basic idea and timeline and builds a whole story from there by inserting Slice of Life episodes with Marco and his remaining family (his father Pietro and older brother Tonio) preparing for the travel, Marco befriending a nearby family and especially the middle daughter Fiorina and finding them again in Argentina, the addition of Tonio and Marco's pet monkey Amedio, etc.
- The remainder of the novel was made into a second series by Nippon Animation in 1981, titled Ai no Gakko Cuore Monogatari (愛の学校クオレ物語; The School Of Love: The Cuore Story). This series aired on Tokyo Broadcasting System, not Fuji TV, and was thus not part of the World Masterpiece Theater despite sharing many of the franchise's tropes.
- Alliterative Name: Marcello Marcini, Mrs. Marini's two year old son who sadly passed away in a shipwreck to Argentina.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: Has Arabic
, Korean, Hebrew and Italian ones. - Bad People Abuse Animals: Miguel is a cruel bison herder who hits Amadeo with a whip, sending Marco in a rage. When his boss hears of this, Miguel is flogged as a punishment.
- Bowdlerize: The Italian dub heavily bowdlerized (mostly cut out) episode 21, because Marco's nightmares (that included his mother dying) were deemed to disturbing for a child audience.
- Canon Foreigner: A few characters like Amedio, Peppino, Concetta, Fiorina and Giulietta, were not in the original novel.
- Central Theme: Gratitude. Marco frequently falls on hard times, but always gets back up because of the kindness people around him, who even give all they have to help him see his mother again. In turn, Marco strives to repay them and unintentionally ends up changing their lives too. When Marco finds her for real and is about to go back, he reunites with the people whose lives he's touched one last time.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Peppino and his family go to Argentina first (offering to take Marco with them) and then reappear when Marco goes there by himself (housing him and treating him like one of their own during their stay).
- Close-Knit Community: Many towns Marco encounters in Argentina are this, all of them knowing Anna in some way or the other and helping him narrow down further and further just where she may be.
- Comic-Book Time: The whole trek Marco went through to find his mom? That was all three months. The fact that he had to board multiple ships, stalk through many towns and put his journey on hold to assist various people he met on the way would make you think it would be months or years longer.
- Coming of Age Story: Of a young boy traversing an entire continent based on nothing but the desire to find his mother and piece his family together. No matter what it takes. There's also a lot of focus on his family troubles, his first love, his first jobs and many other losses of innocence and challenges for a nine-year-old, who's much older at the end of the book.
- Commonality Connection: On the Andrea Doria ship, quite a few passengers are ambivalent towards Marco until he mentions he's Genoese. They changetheir tune because they're also Genoese, and they exchange stories and anecdotes with him.
- Cool Old Guy: Many side characters.
- Federico is an elderly old man who gives the other passengers on the ship reassurance when tney fear they're about to drown. Even Marco, who's a pessimist by disposition, is awed.
- Fadobani is a trader by nature, and after learning that Marco was conned of his money by Merelli, he pays for a boat for him.
- Rodriguez the doctor, who operates on Anna free of charge. His reason is that Anna's recovery is enough payment itself.
- Chief, the ox tamer from Tucuman who helps Marco find his destination. He even gives him a donkey of his own, Grandma.
- Crapsack World: The world as the whole in the 17th century, where the series is set - poverty and economic depression is widespread, and poor people (even children) have to toil to no end to survive. And if the labour doesn't kill you, the diseases and famine certainly will.
- Creator Provincialism: Averted heavily. It's a story of an Italian boy searching for his missing mother in South America, and Japan is not even mentioned once.
- Darker and Edgier: With Anna's fate being left up in the air Marco's sudden Parental Abandonment, the many deaths and near-deaths we see firsthand and many, many more tragedies, even Marco risking never seeing Anna again at one point....this just might be one of the darkest WMT entries to date.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- Emilio, Marco's classmate, doesn't attend school and instead sells ice cream and washes bottles for a living to provide for his poverty-stricken family. This is even though he's 12. He's far from the only child who has to work to survive, as Marco shows.
- The doctor who performs a life-saving operation on Lucretia's mother lampshades that what he's doing is often called "the devil's work".
- Death of a Child: Marcello was only two years old when he drowned alongside many other immigrants during a trip to Argentina.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Anna is driven to apathy because of her illness and accepts her oncoming death because she has no will to live anymore, until she finds out that Marco went all the way from Italy just to see her again, and receives treatment based on his suggestion. With this, Anna is saved, and mother and son go back to Italy to reunite with their family.
- Good Is Not Nice: The doctor that saves Juana's life is a bit of a big-head, but he took her illness seriously and cared for her for the whole night after administering strychnine to her.
- Gratuitous Spanish: There's a lot of this, also serving as a Bilingual Bonus for those who speak Spanish for example Juana's doll is called Chiquitita (Spanish for "little girl").
- Historical Domain Character: Discussed. When Marco tells Narcisco that he's from Genoa, Narcisco asks if he's heard of explorer Christopher Columbus, who's also from there.
- Historical Fiction: The anime is set in the 1880s, when Argentina had an extremely robust economy that attracted waves after waves of Italian immigration.
- An Immigrant's Tale: Marco at one point boards a ship of Italians to Argentina and learns many different reasons for why they want to go there - some feel like Italy is about to reach economic combustion, some want to reunite with their family, and so on.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Ferdinand's name is spelled Birtinand in the credits.
- Inter Species Friendship: Amedio has this not just with Marco, but with Fiorina's Cheerful Child baby sister Giulietta.
- Job-Stealing Robot: Girotti was impressed by Marco's work ethic at first, but he never got the job as he found that a bottle washing robot did the same job more efficiently and for free.
Tropes M-Z
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Sicilio and Luisa Silvani end up becoming a family of eight when Luisa gives birth to sextuplets - Antonio, Roberto, Sofia, Elena, Mario and Bruno.
- Narrator: One who provides a voiceover at the end of every episode, voiced by Akiko Tsuboi.
- Nepotism: Alexandre was furious when Marco admitted to boarding the Andrea Doria without paying a fare, but when he learns that Marco is Genoese (like him), he gives him a pass.
- One-Steve Limit: There are two characters named Anna - Anna Rossi and Anna Marini. When Marco hears of a woman named Anna in the hospital, he goes to see if she's his mother but finds that instead she is an Ill Girl who confuses Marco for her son at first, dying in peace afterwards.
- The Pampas: The Bahía Blanca arc largely consists of Marco traveling through the pampas with Fiorina's family to reach the eponymous city.
- Public Domain Character: Because the original Edmondo De Amicis novel was written in 1886, everyone is this. There's even another anime adaptation of the book by Nippon Animation for this very reason.
- Team Pet: Marco's pet Brazilian monkey, which actually used to belong to his brother Tonio. He gave him his permission to take him to Argentina.
- Port Town: Genoa, where Marco is from, is a a Real Life Port Town in Italy.
- "Number of Objects" Title: Three Thousand Leagues. In what may seem like a large amount to us, but nothing to Marco who will travel to the ends of the Earth to find his mother.
- Prolonged Prologue: It takes the show about 15 episodes to even get Marco on the boat that'll take him to Argentina.
- Scenery Porn: There is so much pretty scenery ranging from the skies, mountains, oceans (hey, a good chunk of this show takes place on ships!) and the beauty of small town Genoa to large, spacious, untouched Argentina. Here are◊ just a few examples.
- Ship Tease: Marco and Fiorina, in a Puppy Love way.
- Silly Simian: Marco's monkey companion Amedio's cute antics insert a bit of comedy in the very melodramatic story.
- Truth in Television: The whole deal with Italians (and non-Italians) immigrating to Argentina really happened, so the Rossi family's situation was probably quite more common than one would think in modern times.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Sorta. Every time Marco gets leads on his Missing Mom's whereabouts, it turns out she and the family she works for has moved away and further into the country already. He finds her in Tucumán, located near the Andes. Meaning, he not only had to go from Italy to Argentina but track her down through Argentina itself..
