Story
The Mysterious Cities of Gold , inspired from the novel The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell, is a 39-episode anime serial centered on the Spanish conquest of the Americas, first broadcast in 1982.

1532, Barcelona. Esteban, a young orphan boy raised by a priest, decides to leave his town after his death, and embarks with the navigator Mendoza and the commander Gomez in an expedition to discover the New World. He meets an Inca girl, Zia, who is the only one on board to know how to read quipus.

Seeking for their origines and their parents, both will face a lot of peripeties, encounters and adventures, including the friendly Tao, the last descendant of the Hiva/Hawaiki civilization (Mu civilization in non-English dubs), before they reach their ultimate goal: the ancient and legendary Cities of Gold…

These series, a mix of fantasy, mythology and adventure, were coproduced in Japan, France and Luxemburg by DiC and Studio Pierrot, and aired worldwide. They had a popular success in France where they were one of the flagship animes of the Récré A2 children's show, alongside Harlock , Space Cobra or Grendizer .