Anne of Green Gables (found English dub of anime series; 1980s)

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Anne of green gables dub.jpg

Title card.

Status: Found

Date found: August 4, 2017

Found by: Echofox

Anne of Green Gables (also known as Akage no An and Red-haired Anne) is an anime adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1908 novel of the same name. The series, produced by Nippon Animation, aired for 50 episodes on Fuji TV between January and December 1979, as part of the company's historic World Masterpiece Theatre franchise. Notably, the series was directed and written by Isao Takahata, co-founder of Studio Ghibli and director of such films like Grave of the Fireflies and Tales of Princess Kaguya. His more well known Ghibli co-founder, Hayao Miyazaki, also worked on the series.

Despite the character's constant presence in Canadian pop culture and the quality of talent behind it, this series was never officially released in English North America (a French-Canadian dub by Cinelume in Montreal, Quebec ran on Radio-Canada in the 80s). Speculation has a legal agreement between Montgomery's estate and Canadian production company Sullivan Entertainment, who produced their own live action and animated Anne adaptations, preventing its distribution in North America, despite the novel itself being in public domain.[1]

Nevertheless, various dubbed adaptations aired around the world, including an English dub. Produced in South Africa during the mid-late 1980s, the English version aired on SABC, in the Philippines on JET TV around 1998, and in Japan on GLC 24 Hour English in 2006.[2][3][4]

Prior to resurfacing, the dub was entirely lost to the public. There were no known home video releases and no unofficial video uploads. In 2016, all but one of the English dubbed episodes were officially uploaded onto YouTube by Kontor New Media on behalf of the show's western licensee, Studio 100.[2] The videos are not available in North America.[5] On August 4, 2017, Lost Media Wiki user Echofox uploaded the missing episode.

References