Little Lulu and Her Little Friends (partially found episodes of anime series; 1976)

Promotional art from the anime.

Status: Partially Found

Ritoru Ruru to Chitchai Nakama (also known as Little Lulu and Her Little Friends) is a 26-episode anime series, produced by Nippon Animation, that ran from October 3rd, 1976, to April 3rd, 1977. This show was based on the American comics by Marjorie Buell. This anime is extremely rare and has been out of print for a long time.

An English dub was made by ZIV International in 1978. It was also dubbed in Spanish, German, Italian (twice, first in 1980, than in 1995, plus a compilation film released in 1980, named "Le incredibili avventure della Piccola Lulú", translated as "The Incredible Adventures of Little Lulu"), Arabic, Hebrew, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Availability

According to a comment on a Little Lulu intro. Little Lulu was very popular in America at the time. However, it was not popular at all in Japan.

It aired in America in the 1980s. VHS tapes were not very popular and were very expensive at the time, so barely anyone could record it.

The only known footage of the Japanese and English versions is the intro. However, the whole series is available in Spanish, courtesy of YouTuber LuLuChibi (Although the episodes are flipped and watermarked), and in Arabic, formerly courtesy of YouTuber Ayam Zaman لولو الصغيرة , and currently courtesy of YouTuber لولو الصغيرة. The RCTV YouTube channel (Formerly the Pongalo YouTube channel) also formerly hosted the Spanish dub, before taking it off the channel. An upload of the Swedish dub of Episode 6 has been on YouTube since December 16, 2014, courtesy of YouTuber Muppet. As for the Italian dubs, the only footage of the 1980 dub is the intro, while the compilation film released that year found it's way onto YouTube on May 15, 2020, courtesy of FilmIsNow. YouTuber Emozioni Ritrovate claims to have a DVD box-set of the 1995 dub for sale.

On July 20th, 2019, YouTuber Lulu1976 Archive, now known as ChozinFellers, uploaded six full episodes of the Ziv International English dub of Little Lulu which was originally uploaded by now-deleted YouTube channel Fogelogel. ChozinFellers is currently planning to sub and redub the anime, through "Project Lulu", and has already opened up a fansite dedicated to the anime, called "Fellers' Frontier".