The Return of Dogtanian (Spanish: El retorno de D'Artacán) is a 1989 Spanish-British children's animated television series, and a sequel to the 1981 Japanese anime series Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, that continues the classic 1844 Alexandre Dumas story of d'Artagnan and The Three Musketeers, produced by Spanish studio BRB Internacional, Televisión Española and Thames Television with animation of Wang Film Productions.[1]
| The Return of Dogtanian | |
|---|---|
| Spanish | El retorno de D'Artacán |
| Genre | Animation, action, comedy-drama, fantasy |
| Based on | The classic story of d'Artagnan and The Three MusketeersbyAlexandre Dumas |
| Developed by | Claudio Biern Boyd |
| Directed by | Wang Yaquan |
| Narrated by | Michael McConnohie |
| Theme music composer | Guido & Maurizio De Angelis |
| Country of origin |
|
| No. of episodes | 26 |
| Production | |
| Producer | Wang Yaquan |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Production companies |
|
| Original release | |
| Release | 1989 (1989) |
| Related | |
| Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds | |
In 1995, BRB Internacional released a television film edited from the series entitled Dogtanian: One For All and All For One.
In 1989 The Return of Dogtanian was produced by BRB Internacional, Televisión Española and Thames Television with animation of Wang Film Productions. Like the first series, 26 episodes were produced. Its budget was 650 million pesetas.[1]
The story is loosely based on the novel The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later also by Alexandre Dumas, itself building on the myth of The Man in the Iron Mask. It picks up ten years after the first series story ends, with Dogtanian and Juliette now married and living together on the outskirts of Paris with their two children, Philippe and Fleur. The Muskehounds are reunited by Queen Anne of Austria when her husband starts acting suspiciously. Cardinal Richelieu is still featured, along with Milady and Widimer still loyal to him.
Dave Mallow and Doug Stone, who co-adapted the original scripts to English and co-directed, took over as the voices of Dogtanian, and Porthos, respectively. As it was produced in TaiwanbyWang Film Productions, Nippon Animation, the Japanese studio which produced the first series, was not involved in the sequel.
In 1995, BRB Internacional released a television film edited from the series entitled Dogtanian: One For All and All For One,[2] with completely different voice actors and a few name changes from the original series.
This series was only released as a box-set and not as individual volumes. There are 4 disks in the set. Unlike the first series which is in Region 0 format, the second series was released in Region 2 format. The DVD of the TV movie was also released in Region 0.
In November 2010, a version that contains both series and both television films was released exclusively for HMV. Later, the complete box set was made available at other retailers.
Nowadays the series is still being broadcast on different platforms such as YouTube[3] and Netflix.