Welcome to the Maple Town Compendium

Good day to all of you out there.  My name is Max West and I'd like to welcome all of you to my new blog.

The focus of this blog is to discuss the 1986 Japanese animated series Maple Town Monogatari  (Japanese: メイプルタウン物語), more commonly known as Maple Town.  

What's that?  You've never heard of this anime?

I hope to change that.  Maple Town seems to be unknown except to three groups of people.  The first would be animation buffs, especially those big on animation history.  The second would be those who were children in the 1980s.  Maple Town would run alongside many other animated series of the 1980s like He-Man & the Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, the Real Ghosbusters, and many more.  The third would be the furry fandom.  This series is noted by furry fans from Japan, USA, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, etc. because of its focus on anthropomorphic animals.

Anyway, my goal is to raise awareness of Maple Town, discuss the series and document its existence for future generations.  This show is quite unique and not just because of its Japanese origins.

When I viewed the show years ago  in 1987 when it broadcast in the United States of America, first airing in syndication and then the cable channel Nickelodeon, I found it fascinating.  Besides its cute nature, the beautifully rendered backgrounds are a technical marvel.  

The very essence of the show was bewildering; this show was made in the 1980s and the sequel series to Maple Town, Palm Town (which I will also discuss on this blog), clearly establishes Maple Town takes place around 1986 and 1987.  Yet everything was old-fashioned.  In the decade of neon-colors, skinny neckties and legwarmers, everyone wore clothes resembling the first half of the twentieth century.  The technology was old-fashioned too.  In spite of this apparently taking place in the 1980s, any technology appearing was antique.  There was a notable lack of television, computers, video games and so on.  I just did not understand why this hamlet called Maple Town seemed to be isolated from the modern world in terms of both culture and technology.  But it still fascinated me.  I watched reruns of Maple Town on Nickelodeon until they stopped airing around April 1993.  The thought of that small village never left my mind.

Years later, I started drawing comics.  Inspired by Maple Town, I created a series with a similar concept - a small, isolated village inhabited by anthropomorphic animals.  It's titled Sunnyville Stories and owes a lot of Maple Town.  That has its own blog so I won't bring it up here that much.  The link is below.

The blog will get regular updates on Sundays; I may do occasional posts during the week.  Welcome to this blog and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Be sure to check out my blog about my comics series Sunnyville Stories and my webcomic Tiffany & Corey.  If you like this blog, be sure to buy me a Ko-Fi.