YMMV / Lucy-May of the Southern Rainbow

• Adaptation Displacement: The anime is so much more popular than the book that merely googling "Southern Rainbow" will bring you results of the anime.
• Americans Hate Tingle: By the time it was made, World Masterpiece Theater was falling out of popularity and were trying new strategies to stay relevant. One of these was deviating from their usual formula of having European-style settings and adapting books Japanese audiences weren't familiar with. The anime did very poorly in Japan, and it took Princess Sarah's success for World Masterpiece Theater to win back the crowd.
  • It cannot even be said that it was Vindicated by History, as according to a 2022 poll where viewers were asked to rank their favourite WMT entries during the Showa Era, Lucy-May ranked #12 out of #14.
• Anvilicious: Alcohol is bad, will drive you to be a drunken idiot, and is something only depressed losers drink to cope with their terrible lives. To be fair, the anime follows the book in this.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Many fans who grew up with the anime call Kate their favourite character, because she's fun to watch compared to her little sister.
• Fair for Its Day: The way Hercules is portrayed is inexcusable, but despite him visibly being of a different race from her and not being able to speak the same language, Lucy May still treats him with kindness and no different from she would treat her white friends. She strikes a friendship with him over flying a kite, and invites the Aboriginal children to join her in playing too.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Lucy-May Of The Southern Rainbow is very popular in Iran, where it was known as "The Immigrants" (مهاجران). It was one of the few anime shown in the country before the Iranian Revolution placed restrictions on the content there. Generations of older Iranians know landmarks of Adelaide all thanks to it, and it even inspired some Iranians to immigrate there.
• Values Dissonance: The depiction◊ of the Aboriginal Australian man is very racist. When Lucy-May meets him, he's wearing no clothes except a loincloth, as are the Aborigine children. He's also incapable of speaking the same language as Lucy May, so instead of bothering to learn his name, Lucy May simply gives him a nickname ("Hercules") and addresses him by that for the whole show. Of course, he has some sweet moments with the Popple kids, but it's still based on outdated stereotypes of Aboriginal folk.
• The Woobie:
  • Lucy-May. She's a sweet, innocent, child, but her family nearly drowns in poverty, her father sells her beloved sheep, and then she loses her memory. Things worsen as she has to choose between reuniting with her family or ensuring that they never starve again, with her choosing the latter option.
  • The Popple's animals. One is killed by Happy, some others die in winter and Snowflake the sheep is sold off so that they can eat.
  • Arthur Popple is so devastated about his life that he drinks to cope and adds more strain to the Popples, as the children now have to contribute as well. He may be a troubled man, but underneath it all is a man full of self-loathing because he couldn't provide for his family.