Josie Pye is supposed to be an Alpha Bitch (in her mind anyway) but her bitchy behavior is pretty minor and a few times Anne actually starts it. Plus, characters constantly go on about how awful the Pye girls are and Josie is the youngest. You have to wonder how much of her attitude is a result of being harshly judged based on her family.
Is Dora Richard really stoic and plain or a depressed Stepford Smiler? She loses her mother, her uncle delays taking her and her brother in before he dies, she has to live with people she barely knows and ignore her in favor of Davy, who bullies her and she isn’t mentioned to have any friends. It’s a lot for her young age.
Anne and Diana's bosom friendship is filled to the brim with Les Yay subtext, with the two frequently exchanging romantic exchanges, and, in the second Kevin Sulivan film — Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel — a kiss on the lips. While this is largely because the books were a product of their time, as it wasn't unusual for girls to have Pseudo Romantic Friendships in the late 1800s and early 1900s, some have theorized that Anne and Diana harbor romantic feelings for each other, but are unable to realize or explore those feelings due to homosexuality being taboo in that period. Some modernized retellings (most notably Anne: An Adaptation of Anne of Green Gables (Sort Of)) go through with this interpretation.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The scene where Anne accidentally gets Diana drunk on currant wine in the musical. In the book and in the anime, this incident has major consequences, causing Mrs. Barry to forbid Diana from seeing Anne. In the live-action show, however, the scene merely happens, and is never referred to again, with Mrs. Barry being more-or-less chill about the whole thing. The audience doesn't really care, though, because it's still pretty funny.
Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story, the third Kevin Sullivan film, is derided as this by many fans of the book series. Unlike the first two films, which were fairly accurate to the series (for being films based on books), the third was an original film with an original script. Not only did it ignore any of the canon after "Anne of Windy Poplars," but it was set in World War I with Anne and Gilbert as newlyweds, moving the entire series forward nearly 30 years. The characters are out-of-character as a result. This continued on even further with Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning which is set during WW2 with Gilbert having died in action (which never occurred in the books, and is far too far on time-wisenote To get an idea on how far, book Anne's kids would be middle-age adults by WWII) and then creating a backstory out of thin air for Anne's life prior to being sent to Green Gables at the start of the first book. It can make one wonder why Kevin Sullivan didn't just create further films around the remaining actual books in the series instead.
For die-hard book fans, the Netflix series Anne with an E can feel like this, with its wild deviation from canon, its Darker and Edgier tone and the ... off characterisation of many of the main characters (including Anne, who is less The Pollyanna and more of a manic Broken Bird).
Cant Unhear It: Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla and Megan Fellows as Anne in the Kevin Sullivan films. They're the most remembered portrayals.
Crosses the Line Twice: The impact is lost a bit since jokes about religion have become much more commonplace, but Anne's first attempt at praying was very much this in 1908.
Fair for Its Day: While the series has its share of Values Dissonance, the portrayal of Anne herself is agreed to have held up well over the years. She's an ambitious, headstrong, intelligent, and creative Plucky Girl whose motivations do not revolve around the male characters, is depicted with realistic flaws that she overcomes, goes to college and gets a brief career as a teacher (and then a principal), and often refuses to adhere to strict gender norms. Now granted, she is still a product of the time and she does grow into more of a stereotypical housewife in later books (however, it's largely portrayed as being her choice and no one else's), but at the time the books was written, where women were written as passive, weak, and subservient, a woman as imaginative and headstrong as Anne was incredibly bold and unusual.
First Installment Wins: Most people don't even realize that Anne of Green Gables is a series. So much emphasis is put on the first book, most people don't even know there are sequels.
Follow the Leader: It has been pointed out that the first book shares too many similarities to the American novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm for these to be coincidental.
It's theorised that the idea of a determined little individualist girl is just that fascinating to female Japanese culture. It's actually relatively common for 1800s western literature to be popular there, as a kind of Foreign Culture Fetish. However, the fanbase in Japan is so huge, it's not uncommon to see two Japanese get married in Green Gables on Prince Edward Island. Or for the nearby inns and hotels to be filled with other Japanese tourists. Even the signs in the tourist attractions on Prince Edward Island will often have Japanese printed right under the English. Anne Of Green Gables is even popular on an academic level in Japan. It's required reading in the curricula of many schools; in fact, it's even been republished in manga/comic format for the sole purpose of encouraging more children and teenagers to read it.
Both the Kevin Sullivan (live-action) series and Anne with an E have been dubbed and broadcast in Japan, the former even airing on one of the nation's biggest commercial TV stations, Fuji TV.
Its influence even extends to other anime; one of the characters in Code Geass, Shirley Fenette, is named after the title character.
Harsher in Hindsight: In "Anne of Windy Poplars", she thinks about teaching her students about the War of 1812 and how Canada's history of taking part in wars is over. Unfortunately, later on in "Rilla of Ingleside", her own son Walter ends up going off to fight in WWI and dies. Since "Windy Poplars" was written after "Rilla of Ingleside" despite taking place beforehand, this may or may not have been intentional as well.
Anne wanting to go to a "concert" with Diana (this being the early 20th century, the word is referring to several local townspeople doing dramatic or comic recitations) plays out exactly like a modern teen trying to get permission to go to a rock concert.
In 1908 the word "cordial" referred to a soda, but has since been changed to an alcoholic drink. Thus, modern readers will likely get confused at why Diana drinking wine is so bad when everyone was fine with her having cordial.
Not a particular song soundalike in this case, but an artist soundalike. One could be forgiven for thinking the English theme song of the '70s anime was recorded by ABBA, as the female vocalists do a near dead-on imitation.
The Italian theme song is catchy and popular among those who grew up with the anime, but it's also infamous for sounding almost identical to Boney M.'s cover of "Rivers of Babylon".
Tough Act to Follow: The Kevin Sullivan adaptations tend to be the definitive ones for fans (North American fans at any rate), and this is another reason why Anne with an E met with such a divisive reception.
is catchy and popular among those who grew up with the anime, but it's also infamous for sounding almost identical to Boney M.'s cover of "Rivers of Babylon".