History Anime / WorldMasterpieceTheater

* '''1979''' ''Red-haired Anne'' (Akage no An) after the 1908 Novel ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. This was the last in the series to feature contributions by Creator/HayaoMiyazaki and Creator/IsaoTakahata. An English dub titled after the original novel was produced in South Africa. The series was also broadcast in Canada, albeit in French.

** A clarification on the production of this series: The entirety of Heidi was done by Zuiyo Eizo. Zuiyo filed for bankruptcy in 1975 and their animation studio then became Nippon Animation, founded by producer Koichi Motohashi (while ''Dog of Flanders'', as well as ''Literature/MayaTheBee'', were already on the air). Zuiyo continued on as a separate entity from Nippon Animation, and has continued to hold the copyright of the Heidi anime ever since.

** ''Piccolino no Boken'', based on Carlo Collodi's ''Literature/{{Pinocchio}}'' (aired on TV Asahi, not to be confused with ''Anime/MokkuOfTheOakTree'' aka ''Saban's Adventures of Pinocchio'', which was made by Creator/TatsunokoProduction)

* '''1975''' ''Literature/ADogOfFlanders'' (Furandāsu no Inu) (Zuiyo Enterprise[=/=]Nippon Animation, and from there out, all of World Masterpiece Theater productions have been done by Nippon Animation) after the novel by the English novelist Marie Louise De la Ramée.

* '''1982''' ''Anime/LucyOfTheSouthernRainbow'' (Minami no Niji no Rūshī) based on ''Southern Rainbow'' by Australian writer Phyllis Piddington.

* From 1979 to 1980, Tokyo 12 (Creator/TVTokyo) had a series of anime programs called "Kirin Masterpiece Romance Theater" (Kirin being the sponsor), produced by DAX International, with each program set in Europe (except ''Kinpatsu no Jeanie'', which takes place in America during the Civil War) and having characters dealing with numerous hardships. While they were obviously done to compete with WMT, they differed in that three out of four shows done for the lineup were original stories developed by the Japanese studio. The shows were ''Anime/NobaraNoJulie'' ("Julie the Wild Rose"), ''Paris no Isabelle'' ("Anime/IsabelleOfParis"), ''Kinpatsu no Jeanie'' ("Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", very loosely inspired by the Stephen Foster song of the same name but the story is wholly original otherwise), and ''Sasurai no Shôjo Nell'' ("Nell the Wandering Girl", based on "The Old Curiosity Shop" by Creator/CharlesDickens). Each show lasted 13 episodes, with the exception of "Nell", which ran for 26.

* '''1982''' ''LucyOfTheSouthernRainbow'' (Minami no Niji no Rūshī) based on ''Southern Rainbow'' by Australian writer Phyllis Piddington.

** The same year, ''[[Literature/TheMoomins Moomin]]'' (Creator/TMSEntertainment for episodes 1 to 26, Mushi for the rest, also the only part of the World Masterpiece Theater to be done by TMS) premiered, after the book series by Finnish auther Tove Jansson; Jansson disowned the series due to its great divergence from the original works.

* '''1972''' ''New [[Literature/TheMoomins Moomin]]'' (Mushi) (closer to the original books than the previous series; last series to be done by Mushi)