The Mysterious Cities of Gold
1982 animated television series
Esteban: Child of the Sun (Japanese: 太陽の子エステバン, Hepburn: Taiyō no Ko Esuteban), known outside of Japan as the first season of The Mysterious Cities of Gold (French: Les Mystérieuses Cités d'Or), is a French-Japanese animated series which was produced by MK Company, NHK, DiC Audiovisuel, CLT and animated by Studio Pierrot.
The series was originally broadcast in Japan and the French version, edited with different characterization and music, was subsequently redubbed and distributed in many countries. It is currently licensed for English-language home video release in the United Kingdom, Australia, and North America by Fabulous Films.
When it was rebroadcast in Japan on NHK BS2 from 1998 to 1999, the animation was imported back from France and the audio was redubbed. NHK had erased the original VTR when their contract expired, and the rights holder had lost the master copy. The voice actress for the main character, Esteban, was the only one to reprise her role.
A sequel, serving as a three-season continuation of the original, premiered in 2012.
Plot
It is the 16th century. From all over Europe, great ships sail west to conquer the New World, the Americas. The men, eager to seek their fortune, to find new adventures in new lands.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Mysterious Cities of Gold” is 1982 animated television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mysterious, Cities and Gold, not as a finished interpretation.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1218397. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 1999 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Mysterious Cities of Gold” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.