Trivia / Haikara-san ga Tooru

• Cross-Dressing Voices: Kazuko Sugiyama plays Ranmaru in the '70s TV anime.
• Disowned Adaptation: Waki Yamato was reportedly so unhappy about the way the 1978 TV anime was handled toward the end of its run (being cut short due to poor ratings and having a rushed conclusion different from that of the manga tacked on) that she turned down subsequent requests to have other works of hers animated. The anime film version marked the first time one of Yamato's works had been animated in nearly four decades.
• No Export for You:
  • The 2017 film was the first time the series had any American release, and with an English dub too.
  • Late Export for You: It took until the early '90s for the 1978 TV series to reach the French market, a decade after the show had aired in Italy.
• She Also Did:
  • One of Waki Yamato's earlier manga, Mon Cheri CoCo, a series about an aspiring fashion designer, had been turned into an anime in 1972. Unlike Haikara-san, it's virtually forgotten today, having been cancelled early due to financial problems, and having never received a home video release or international distribution; at present, the only part of the anime known to exist is the OP.
  • Nippon Animation, the studio that made the anime, was primarily known at the time for the World Masterpiece Theater and its other anime adaptations of Western literature; in comparison, the studio's success with original stories or series adapted from manga was spotty at best (until Chibi Maruko-chan anyway). The series director, Kazuyoshi Yokota, would later direct one of the WMT serials, My Daddy Long Legs (1990).

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