Based on the 1878 novel by Hector Malot, Nobody's Boy Remi (originally called Sans Famille, meaning “without family") is part of what appears to be AnimEigo's “Ruined Childhood” collection. That tongue-in-cheek label (the series is famously bleak in places) is well deserved, although the meaning could be said to have a double meaning. Yes, young Rémi's life is horrible in places, but this is also a bit of a childhood ruiner if you read Malot's original, because Osamu Dezaki's version of the story makes a few major changes, not all of which feel merited.

The story takes place in France and England in the late 19th century. Rémi is eight when it opens, happily living an impoverished life with his mother, Madame Barbarin, in a small French farming community. Things aren't great – the family has to sell their beloved cow Rousette – but are still generally fine until his father returns home from Paris after a work injury. Monsieur Barbarin may once have been a kind man, but his injury and self-medication with alcohol have changed him, and the first thing he does is to ask why Rémi is still there…because he's not the Barbarins' child, but a foundling. With no more income, he's determined to get rid of the boy, at which point a traveling performer named Vitalis appears and offers to buy him. Rémi goes off with the old man, setting the plot in motion.

If you're familiar with the works of Charles Dickens, there's a good chance you'll recognize a lot of the elements of this story. If anything, Dezaki plays up the Oliver Twist comparisons towards the middle and end of the series. One of the major changes made from the source material is the character of Mattia, who in Dezaki's version is very much an Artful Dodger reference. In Malot's novel, Mattia is a much less dynamic character, a weak Italian child who has lost his mother and is punished by the Fagin-like boss of the slums for not bringing in enough money. In Nobody's Boy Remi, he's brash, intelligent, and scrappy, taking his future into his own hands and helping Rémi as an equal partner. These changes really heighten the already clear Dickensian notes (Oliver Twist was written between 1838 and 1839), and serve to make the story more appealing for a modern audience.

And there is still appeal in this series. Throughout fifty-one episodes, Nobody's Boy Remi follows the highs and lows of what life could be like for traveling entertainers in the 19th century. While it is a very typical Victorian melodramatic narrative in many ways, particularly as an orphan story, it also hits some notes that would have spoken to its original audience in 1978 as well as viewers today. Episode eight deals with pollution and terrible air quality, while episode ten specifically looks at the abuse of power by the police, with a policeman using his authority to jail Vitalis for a very minor infraction; later another officer accuses Rémi and Mattia of theft simply because they “don't look like” they should have the amount of money they've fairly earned. The series also does a remarkably good job of showing how the world treats those it sees as “outsiders” or others. Both thieves and performers are put on the same level repeatedly, and Rémi is blamed for his foundling status, as if it were his fault that he didn't have biological parents. People's prejudices are on full display throughout, but it's still done with relative subtlety and never feels like it's hitting you over the head with its social messages. All of this also makes it remarkable that the two Black characters who come into the story towards the end, most notably Bob, are treated with respect. He's not drawn in any overtly racist way and is never shown as subservient to the white characters.

The series also retains the heartstring-tugging of the original novel. Most of the tragic elements are confined to the first half of the series, when a series of misfortunes, kicked off by that overbearing policeman in episode ten, cause most of the Vitalis troupe to perish. If you are bothered by animal deaths in your media, be warned that there are several here, as well as two major human deaths throughout the series. Ironically, it is the death of Vitalis that improves Rémi's life; Vitalis, despite having bought Rémi, is not a bad man. There's an argument to be made that he purchased the boy to prevent anything worse from happening to him, and he taught him several valuable skills, not the least of which was to play multiple instruments. But Vitalis is also the reason why Rémi took longer to reunite with his birth mother than he might have otherwise, something that in Victorian literature would have been seen as a bad thing. And even in a modern mindset, it's not hard to see that Vitalis refusing to let Rémi stay with the wealthy English family he met during Vitalis' incarceration isn't a great plan. Rémi is deprived of a comfortable childhood, not just at this point, but at two more points as the story goes on. In the novel, it's easy to see that Malot intended this to be a shortsighted move on Vitalis' part, and one that has dire repercussions on Rémi. In the series, it feels like Dezaki failed to understand that Malot's point was that Rémi deserved a safe and comfortable life, with a last-minute plot change that has Rémi leaving after reuniting with both of his mothers again to go back on the road.

This is the major issue with this series, although it may not bother those unfamiliar with the source material. In the book, Mrs. Milligan not only brings Rémi home but also adopts Mattia and Lise, a mute girl Rémi met after Vitalis' death. It's meant to be a triumphant, happy ending, where Rémi and Mattia, having survived their trials, are rewarded with what they should have had all along. By changing this, the series fundamentally misunderstands that Malot wanted Rémi to have that reward of safety, undercutting the entire point of the book. Perhaps even worse, it feels remarkably awkward, since the de facto epilogue returns to the text.

Still, Nobody's Boy Remi is a very good example of the appeal of classic anime. The story is fluid, full of emotional ups and downs. If it isn't up to modern artistic standards, it still looks good. AnimEigo's release comes with old-fashioned 3D glasses, since parts of the series were intended to be viewed that way (but are fine without the glasses). It may be a quirk of my particular vision problems, but I couldn't quite make the 3D work; it's still a fun inclusion, however. The quality of the pictures is mostly clear, with a softness that speaks to the older techniques used, with the final ending theme being the only piece of the series with lower picture quality. The release includes both the Japanese and French dubs with English subtitles; however, the subtitle track is the same for both. This is an issue because the French dub is both a bit more faithful to the book and also goes its own way in places, adding lines in some scenes and removing them in others. (It should be noted that in both cases, they're moments where mouth-syncing isn't an issue.) That makes the French dub a little harder to follow if you need the English subs, but I'd still recommend it over the Japanese version. It's richer in its nuances, and Martine Messager's Mrs. Milligan is incredible – she genuinely sounds like an English-speaker attempting French. (Messager was, in fact, French herself.) I also just really like the typical French narrator voice, and Jean Topart is excellent.

While Nobody's Boy Remi doesn't have the fidelity of other World Masterpiece Theater adaptations (such as Anne of Green Gables), it's still historically important and a solid work in itself. I may disagree with the adaptational choices made, but I can't fault most of the execution or the dramatic beats. Is it odd that at one point, a clear 1976 road map of France is used? Yes. But even these little flubs or details make the series a piece of anime history, and that may be this release's greatest strength.