Three Musketeers (anime)

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Three Musketeers

アニメ三銃士 (Three Musketeers)
Genre	Adventure, Historical, Romance
TV anime : Three Musketeers
Directed by	Kunihiko Yuyama
Studio	Gakken, KORAD
Network	NHK La 5 Radio-Canada Italia 1
Original run	1987 – 1989
No. of episodes	52

Three Musketeers (アニメ三銃士 Anime Sanjushi) is an anime television series adaption of Alexandre Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers. It was created by Gakken and directed by Kunihiko Yuyama. It was first broadcast in Japan on NHK in 1987. Then it was broadcast in France's La cinq in 1989. Then it was aired later in Quebec's Radio-Canada from 1990 to 1996. The series consisted of 52 half-hour episodes.

[edit] Plot Summary

D'artagnan leaves his hometown of Gascogne for Paris in order to join the Musketeers company or the Guards of the Cardinal. At his arrival, he went into an argument with Athos, Porthos and Aramis and provokes them into a duel. At the time of the duel, they were interrupted by the Guards of the Cardinal who are enforcing the King's decree banning duels. Afterwards, d'Artagnan and company became friends and adopted the motto, "one for all, all for one".

[edit] Differences between Anime and Novel

In the anime, Aramis is a woman who cross-dressed into a man in order to become a musketeer. Aramis' love of the arts in the original novel influenced the producers into changing the character's gender. In addition, it added a romantic angle within the series and therefore increase the anime's popularity.
The Iron mask story arc started only after a few months of the preceding part, while in the novel it was set 20 years apart.
Constance is not the wife of Bonacieux in this version, but his daughter in order to facilitate the romantic relationship between Constance and d'Artagnan as envisioned by the producers.
D'Artagnan is much younger in the anime than the novel, he was 15 years old at the beginning of the series.
A new character replaced Planchet in other versions of the novel: Jean, a nine year old boy who is looking for his missing mother accused of helping a protestant.