Anime / Hello! Sandybell

aka: Sandy Bell

Sandybell and Oliver

Hello! Sandybell (ハロー!サンディベル) is a 1981 adventure, slice-of-life anime made by Shiro Jimbo and produced by Toei Animation. It aired on TV Asahi and ran for a total of 47 episodes, from March 6, 1981 to February 26, 1982. Hiroshi Shidara served as it's director while Yuyake Usui was credited as its producer. The writing team included Noboru Shiroyama and Hirohisa Soda.

Sandybell Christie is a young girl who lives in Scotland with her father and dog, Oliver. She loves to play with her friends and lives a relatively ordinary life. One day Sandybell meets the Countess of Wellington, a kind-hearted lady who gifts her a white lily. Kitty, one of Sandybell's neighbours, is envious of this and grows to resent her as she wants to win the heart of her son, Mark.

However, personal tragedies change the lives of Sandybell and Mark forever. It culminates in Mark running away and Sandybell being forced to move to London, leaving her beloved home and community in Scotland. Secrets of her past start to unravel as she begins to find clues about her biological mother. Is she really deceased, and where in the world is she?

The anime was known as Hello! Sandybelle in it's native Japan, but when it was being exported to other countries, the name became Hello! Sandybell. Though the name changes by country, they all use the "Sandybell" spelling.

Hello! Sandybell has examples of:

• Aerith and Bob: There's Mark, Kitty, Leslie, Julie, Linda, Lawrence, Alec and Sandybell.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song:
  • The theme song has French, Italian, Catalan Spanish, Greek, Latin American Spanish and Arabic versions.
  • While there are also probably similarly-dubbed Ending Themes, the only ones that can be found online are the Greek and Arabic ones.
• Amazing Technicolour Population: Sandybell's little squirrel friend is purple.
• Ambiguous Time Period:
  • With the innovations in technology and vehicles, you'd imagine this takes place in The '80s, like the time of its release. However, the Shearers use rotary phones.^note And before you tie that down to poverty, keep in mind they're the wealthiest named characters in the entire show
  • When we're shown Leslie's grave for the first time, it says 1937-1977, implying that the series takes place in 1977. However, in the Grand Finale, we see it again, and this time it says 1857-1938. What?
• Arranged Marriage: Kitty's father proposes that Kitty marries Mark, the son of the Countess of Wellington. Kitty likes him but Mark doesn't reciprocate, and wants to be a painter rather than settle down and get married. Mr. Shearer recognizes his talent and agrees that he should follow his passion instead.
• Betty and Veronica: Mark has the choice of the sweet-natured and shy Sandybell, and the bitchy and pushy Kitty. He actually becomes engaged to Kitty, but breaks it off to be with Sandybell, while Kitty eventually ends up with Alec.
• Big Fancy House: Both Mark and Kitty come from wealth (though Mark ends up being an Impoverished Patrician) and live in fancy mansions.
• Birthday Episode: Mark initially doesn't want a birthday party because of how stressed he is with his family's situation, but Sandybell throws one for him and invites all her friends in Scotland. Mark is taken aback by the kind gesture.
• Book Ends: Sort of. The show is called Hello! Sandybelle, and the finale is called Goodbye Sandybelle, happy forever!.
• Bound and Gagged: On three different occasions, Sandybell and Ricky, Kitty and Scapan and Mark are kidnapped. They are tied back-to-back with ropes and have cloths over their mouths.
• Bowdlerise: Has its own page.
• Boy Meets Girl: Girl lives in rural Scotland all her life, and through a string of unusual circumstances, ends up meeting a boy who's actually the son of the Countess of Wellington. When the girl's father dies of a disease and she has to move to London, and the boy's parents die in a car accident so he's forcibly hauled off to an Arranged Marriage. Boy doesn't want this, so he runs away from home, and throughout the series tries his best to be in girl's life by leaving her small gifts and messages. Boy sets off a chain of events that help the girl find her long-lost mother, and after the boy's ex-betrothed accepts he's moved on and also moves on with someone else, girl and boy live together happily ever after.
• Bratty Half-Pint: The neighborhood kids, who love to muck around in places they're not allowed and often irritate the adults when playing.
• Britain Is Only England: Averted. The series starts in Scotland, then London, and for a short while Sandybell goes to Wales.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The first arc is light-hearted slice of life and focuses on Sandybell reaching out and making new friendships with the noble Wellingtons, with the only real source of conflict centered around class and societal expectations. The next arcs involve child abuse, drug dealers, kidnappings, mysteries, crime and Dark And Troubled Pasts...yet it's all presented in the anime's signature light-hearted tone.
• Children Are Innocent: A lot of the main characters are children who aren't prepared for the tragic losses they face.
• Coming of Age Story: The story begins when Sandybell is a pre-teen and focuses on her going on a World Tour across Europe to find her missing mother, while coping with the loss of her love Mark, who ran away from home, her job as a reporter for Ronwood Newspapers, and how she helps the many friends she makes along the way.
• Creator's Culture Carryover: Mostly averts this, being set in the United Kingdom and different places in Europe, and being very accurate without being stereotypical. Though there is the fact that Alec and Sandybell treat their jobs at Kan Kan's like a lifetime occupation, which is common in Japan but not in the UK...
• Cool Car: The fan-nicknamed Sandybell Car (despite being a van), which Mr. Ronwood gave to Sandybell so that she could report news stories better. It has many features, like a built in hose, metal arms, an alarm system, hyper speed, moving doors and many other features that can be accessed with the push of a button. It is plain white with red highlights, and has a red heart on the back with a heart-shaped window. It's sheer epicness stands out in contrast to the anime's realistic tone. And of course, it's piloted by Kids Driving Cars.
• Costume Porn: We get a lot of these thanks to resident Ojou Kitty, who comes from a wealthy family and is always well-dressed.
• Creator Provincialism: Averted. The anime is set in Scotland and all over Europe, but the creators and staff are based in Japan, and there's not a single Japanese character.
• Culture Equals Costume: The Arab painting buyer wears a white sheet on his head that has two black rings on the top.
• Domino Mask: At the ball, both Mark and Sandybell, amongst others, wear them. Mark's is black and covers a small area around his face, but Sandybell's is big, red and frilly.
• Driven to Suicide: Discussed in-universe. Some characters, notably the Shearers, speculate that the tragic deaths of the Count and Countess Wellington were not an unfortunate accident, but rather a deliberate suicide motivated by the shame the Wellingtons must have felt they brought upon their bloodline after losing so much wealth and power.
• Drugs Are Bad: Alec Peterson hates drug organizations because when he was young, him, his mother and his sister were abused by their father, who was a drug addict.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
  • For budget reasons, the Swedish dub had to cut 7 episodes near the end of the show to fit 40 episodes across 10 VHS tapes with 4 episodes each. This lead to a major whiplash for Swedish audiences as tape 10 opens with the characters in situations that weren't even remotely similar to what was going on at the end of tape 9.
  • In the Italian dub, Sandybell travels to the Italian island of Corsica to find her mother after the shipwreck accident, instead of the Greek island of Lefkada in the original anime. It is in fact extremely unlikely that the victim of a shipwreck on the English Channel finds refuge in Corsica because of the geographical distance.
• Dub Name Change:
  • Sort of. Sandybelle is Sandybelle in Japan, but Sandybell everywhere else.
  • In the French dub, Sandybell is shortened to Sandy.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Sandybell has to travel multiple countries to an obscure Greek island of Lefkada to find her long-lost mother. And every step includes some shocking moments. She unwittingly gets hers by causing a domino effect by rescuing a little girl in the waters - Linda sees it, and recalls years ago, she was in an shipwreck accident that caused her to be separated from her baby - that baby was Sandybell.
• First Girl Wins: Charles knew Sandybell first and Kitty knew Mark first, but they were aquaintances at best - Charles was a kid who often bullied Sandybell, and Kitty was neighbours with his family. Both Sandybell and Mark are this to each other, as they actually viewed each other as friends first. Over the show they both accumulate their own fair share if unrequited admirers, but that doesn't change the fact that they met for the first time at the house of the Countess of Wellington and eventually end as an Official Couple.
• Flower Motifs: Almost every female character has one. The Countess has lillies, Sandybell has flowers in general, Linda Edward has daffodils...
• Flowers of Femininity: Since the anime is set in Scotland, flowers are constantly in focus and Sandybell loves to use them as a fashion statement. One record disc cover also has them at the forefront◊.
• Friend to All Living Things:
  • Sandybelle befriends birds, horses, dogs, rabbits...
  • The Countess of Wellington loves flowers and dedicates herself to a garden of them. She's also a Friend to All Children.
• Gray And White Morality: No character in the show is truly evil - unpleasant, sure, and abusive in other instances - but most characters are shown to have hidden hearts of gold no matter how nasty they act on the outside. The drug dealers are certainly evil, but are also shown to be cowardly and easily get their asses whooped by Sandybell and her van.
• Hunting Is Evil: In the first episode, Kitty's hunt takes a turn when Sandybell prevents her from taking a bird she shot, vowing to protect the injured animal. When Kitty goes to the school board and demand they punish her, Professor Christie pretends he doesn't know the girl Kitty's describing (who happens to be his daughter), and says that it could have been any of his students, as he taught them that injuring animals is bad. He ends the session by telling Kitty that it's for the better that she doesn't hunt, while Kitty fumes.
• Love Triangle: Sandybell and Mark clearly like one another, which makes Kitty angry, as she likes Mark too.
• Man in a Kilt: Obviously since the anime is set in Scotland.
• Masquerade Ball: Mark's birthday party is celebrated with one, where he has a Dance of Romance with Sandybell.
• Melodrama: The main characters all have complicated interpersonal relationships that build off melodrama. Sandybell likes Mark, but she's also very attached to his mother despite meeting her briefly, because she grew up without one herself and sees a Parental Substitute in her. Mark likes her back, but because he's the son of the Wellington family, he's forced into an Arranged Marriage with Kitty. Kitty has always hated Sandybell and is elated at marrying Mark, but he doesn't want to marry her and flees from Scotland after his parents die, trying to pursue his dream. Sandybell is broken by this, especially as her father dies around the same time, and sets off on her own adventure after moving to London, believing she can find her mother. Her free-spiritedness and refusal to abandon hope drives most of the show.
• Neglected Garden: Averted. After the death of the Countess of Wellington, Sandybell promised to always take care of her garden to honour her memory. Sadly, Sandybell's father also dies, and she has to move to London to live with his best friend, Mr. Longwood. Before she leaves Scotland, Charles, George and David promise her that they will always take care of it in her place.
• Nobility Marries Money: The driving force behind the arranged marriage between Mark Wellington and Kitty Shearer. The Wellingtons are aristocrats with very little wealth left, whereas the Shearers own an extremely successful business empire.
• Phenotype Stereotype: The series takes place in Scotland so a lot of characters (Kitty, Charles, Mark) are redheads or have reddish-brown hair. Sandybelle, however, is blonde - it's later found out that she's adopted.
• Pink Is Feminine: Many female characters (like the titular Sandybell and Kitty) wear pink. Though Sandybell's also a case of Unlimited Wardrobe.
• Pretty Butterflies: In the anime's opening, a big violet butterfly rests on Sandybell's head for a while before flying away.
• Rewatch Bonus: An early episode contains a flashback to Leslie and Kern discussing Leslie raising Sandybell as a single dad, which is an inevitable conversation if you just became a widower follwing your child's birth. However, the actual context is that of someone adopting a stranger's child because there was no one else to take care of said child, as the father is dead and mother nowhere to be found.
  Kern: Are you sure you can take care of Sandybell all by yourself?
  Leslie: I am.
  Kern: Wouldn't it be easier if you asked someone for help?
  Leslie: Maybe, but I want to ensure she's taken care of and raised into a proper lady.
  Kern: If you say so, but... What will you tell her when she starts asking about her mother?
  Leslie: Well...
• Scenery Porn: Right out of a watercolour painting. See here◊ and here◊.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Shearer car's registration number is FAB 1, the same as Lady Penelope's car in the series Thunderbirds (1965-1966).
  • Joji Yanase, the anime's character designer, was inspired by Pippi Longstocking to give Sandybell long stockings.
• Train-Station Goodbye: As Sandybell leaves Scotland, she's surrounded by all the friends she's made, both adults and children, who know she has to go to London to live with Mr. Ronwood since she has no other living relatives. They all shed tears upon seeing her leave the station, and as the train departs, Sandybell sees Charles, James and David, the three boys who used to bully her, also cry and call her name. Charles yells out a Big "NO!" as he tries to get near the train and give his goodbyes to Sandybell, worrying he'll never see her again. All along, Charles had a crush on her, he just couldn't say it. Fear not, they eventually do reunite in the end after Sandybell has found her mother. Charles has since accepted her feelings for Mark and become a Shipper on Deck for the two.
• Watching the Sunset: A variant where Sandybell and Mark watch the morning sun alongside the colourful skies during their camping trimp.
• World Tour: The anime is about Sandybell touring all over Europe to find her mother (and get scoops for her newspaper job).