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Anne of Green Gables (1979)

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  • Adaptation Displacement:
    • In Italy, the anime is far more widely known than the original book, thanks to Adaptation First. However, because of its success in Italy, the original novel was brought over and translated a year later (yet is still less known by comparison).
    • In Iran, the Alternative Foreign Theme Song of the anime was a very blatant Persian-language cover of Careless Whispers by George Michael. Somehow they didn't get used for this despite the melody and beats being the same. Despite the sexual nature of the song, most Iranians know it as the "Anne of Green Gables theme" rather than what it actually is. Obviously they rewrote the lyrics to be more child-friendly.
  • Audience-Coloring Adaptation: This is the most well-known adaptation of Anne of Green Gables in Japan, hence why so many other anime specifically reference it rather than the book it's based on. This is reflected with the later anime adaptation Anne Shirley (2025); despite being unrelated, the anime's character designs (particularly Anne's first outfit) borrow heavily from the 1979 anime.
  • Awesome Art: The stills of Anne using her imagination and the Scenery Porn are absolutely gorgeous and excellently drawn, which is perhaps to be expected given that Hayao Miyazaki was involved with the art (at least for the first 15 episodes), but that's not even scratching the surface of promotional imagery, especially this one that reimagines Anne and Diana in a watercolour painting!
  • Cult Classic: Far from popular in the Anglosphere, but has a decent-sized fanbase who enjoy it and hail it as one of Takahata's best works. It's also somewhat known by Canadians, considering this.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: While the anime features Ship Tease between Anne and Gilbert (who eventually become the Official Couple in the books), if fan art is any indication, anime fans tend to prefer Anne/Diana due to the Les Yay stemming from their Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. This is unlike the fandom of the books and most other adaptations, where Anne/Gilbert is typically the more popular ship. Part of this likely stems from the anime not adapting the later books, where Anne and Gilbert's eventual romance becomes more of a central focus.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Don't mistake the anime as a Studio Ghibli production unless you want to annoy fans, as the anime predates Ghibli's founding by six years and was done by Nippon Animation. In all fairness, the anime does have the involvement of several future Ghibli animators, including co-founders Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki as director and key animator, respectively (though the latter would leave after 15 episodes), so this is a forgivable mistake.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • Anne Of Green Gables (1979) was fairly popular in Korea, even among older demographics. It was so adored that at one point in The '90s, it used to be broadcast every winter vacation. A good chunk of online traffic you find about the show is from there, and it's not uncommon for Koreans to create their own parodies. It just might be more famous there than anywhere else.
    • It is also well-loved in Iran. It was dubbed into Persian and it was rerun many times because of its popularity amongst teenagers. Albeit the source material was not very well received there before the anime. Even though (or possibly, because) the current Iranian government has placed bans on imported anime, it remains one of the most famous animations in the country.
    • It was also popular in Italy back when it aired in The '80s. The novel is even known as Anna dai Capelli Rossi (the anime's Italian title, as opposed to the original title Anne of Green Gables) there since most Italians are familiar with that name. There was tons of original merchandise in Italy that Japan never got.
    • Thanks to Superlative Dubbing, the anime found some success in Egypt. There are many Egyptian Facebook groups that praise it and it is still rerun today on channels like Nilesat. To the point when sequel series Konnichiwa Anne: Before Green Gables (2009) was dubbed in Arabic, it was done by an Egyptian studio, Video 2000 (before receiving a redubbing by Spacetoon).
  • Just Here for Godzilla: A lot of people are interested in the anime because it had the involvement of Isao Takahata as director and Hayao Miyazaki as one of the key animators (though Miyazaki actually left the show when it was 15 episodes into production) in one of their pre-Studio Ghibli collaborations.
  • Moe: Who else but the imaginative and energetic Anne Shirley? It helps that since this is a visual medium, you can actually see her curiosity and inquisitiveness play out in her interactions with others.
  • Superlative Dubbing:
    • The Korean dub is superbly done, with a memorable All-Star Cast in the original dubbings and redubbings. Young Koreans mostly remember it for having Jeong Yeo-jin sing the opening.
    • The South African English dub, while it does have its issues such as the lip sync not always matching the dialogue, getting some names and terminology wrongnote  and casting all British actors for a show set in Canada, the quality of the voice acting and scripting was found to be surprisingly good for a dub made in the eighties or nineties, something that was very uncommon back in that time period. YouTube comments on some of the dubbed episodes regularly praise the dub for its care and attention to detail.
    • The Arabic dub was done by a team that made sure to ensure to ensure that the dialogue translated from Japanese would fit values relevant to their culture, as well as changing the character names to Arabic-language ones so that viewers would find them more relatable.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song:
    • Not a particular song soundalike in this case, but an artist soundalike. One could be forgiven for thinking the English theme song of the 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 are familiar with the anime, but it's also infamous for blatantly 'borrowing' a lot from Boney M.'s cover of "Rivers of Babylon".
    • Whereas the Persian dub from Iran straight up uses George Michael's Careless Whispers as its theme except it's in a different language. No, really. Who thought using a song about infidelity was alright for a children's anime?
  • Tear Jerker: In episode 16, after the cherry cordial incident when Anne pleads her case to Mrs. Barry and is rebuffed, she stays stoic until she gets home, when she bursts into hysterical tears and runs into Marilla's arms while a sad song plays in the background. The song continues playing as Marilla tucks Anne into bed and gently wipes away the sleeping girl's tears. The voice acting, in both the Japanese and in the South African-made English dub, really brings home the emotional power.

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