Some Facts:

Production year: 1987
Produced by: Nippon Animation, Tokyo, Japan
Episodes: 48
Episode length: 25 min.
First aired: 11. January 1987 - 27. December 1987

Hint: This series will be released in Japan on 12 DVDs in the year 2001. See here for more info (Japanese language)

The series was directed by KUROKAWA Fumio who also directed the 1985 adaption of Burnett's "A little Princess" in the WMT.
The wonderful character design was done by KONDÔ Yoshifumi. Mr. Kondo did also the char design of the 1979 WMT "Anne of Green Gables" and he worked and became famous as character and production designer or supervising animator in Studio Ghibli films like "Only Yesterday", Kiki's Delivery Service", "Grave of the Fireflies" and "Mononoke Hime". His masterpiece was the direction of the wonderful Studio Ghibli movie "Whisper of the Heart" in 1995. Unfortunately Mr. Kondo died in 1998 at the early age of 47.

But it was not only Little Women which made it into the World Masterpieces Theater. Also Louisa May Alcott's third novel in this series, "Little Men" was animated in 1993, a show which I dedicated a chapter of its own.

Countries where "ai no wakakusa monogatari" was shown:

Germany:
I was introduced to this Little Women anime during its showing in November 1997 on the German TV station RTL2, but to that time it had already been shown several times on the same chanel. It was repeated Feb-Apr 1998 and it restarted on 22. June 1999.
First airdate is said to be somewhen in 1995

France:
It has been shown several times, but most times on Pay TV. I had the chance to see the French version somewhen in 1998, when it aired on a French Free TV station.

Italy:
This was probably the first country here in Europe which showed this anime. In 1988 to be exact, at least that's what the copyright print on the single with the opening song says. The melody was used for the French and German OP too.

It seems that the Italian version is on air at the moment (June 1999)

USA:
A long time it seemed to me that no English dub was made of this series, but I was wrong. Already in 1990 HBO showed a dubbed version (done by Saban) and I know it was aired in the Northern California area on Christian chanels like KTNC 42 and KTWU 8 in spring 1999.

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E-Mail: mike@xanth.de