Heidi, Girl of the Alps

Heidi Girl of the Alps is a 1974 Anime series that ran for 52 episodes on Fuji TV, based on the famous Heidi's Years of Wandering and Learning Swiss classic children's novel by Johanna Spyri. The adaptation is notable for being directed by Isao Takahata and animated by Hayao Miyazaki - in other words, the core of what would become Studio Ghibli. It's considered part of the World Masterpiece Theater, as its producing animation studio, Zuiyo Eizo, would become Nippon Animation the following year.

It tells the tale of Adelheid aka Heidi, a five year old orphan who is pretty much dumped by her aunt Dete on her grandpa, a gruff man with a bad reputation who lives alone in the mountains, when the lady must work in Germany and cannot take her along. Heidi, being Moe Moe, quickly melts the old man's heart and makes a friend in Peter, a goatherd six year older than her, and Grandpa's huge St Bernard dog, Joseph (renamed in many foreign dubs for some reason as some variation on the word "fog"). Just as she has gotten cozy in the Alps, Dete comes back and tricks her into leaving the mountains for Frankfurt to become the companion of a lonely, rich Ill Girl bound to a wheelchair, Klara Sesemann. Once again, she makes friends with the whole household (except for uptight old hag Mrs. Rottenmeier), but she gets increasingly homesick, to the point that she starts sleepwalking. For her sanity's sake, she's allowed to go back to the Alps, with the promise that Clara will be allowed to visit her there. Which just happens to be exactly what Clara needs for her health...

Heidi was a big success (it was a big reason the initial broadcast of Space Battleship Yamato, on a rival network in the same timeslot, flopped), and it is still fondly remembered in Japan and many foreign countries - as a testament to how beloved it still is in Japan, its iconic opening sequence was parodied 50 years later in the anime remake of Ranma 1/2. It's much more obscure in the U.S., as only a movie-length edited version of the show (made by Zuiyo in 1975, though not released in theaters until 1979, and done without Takahata and Miyazaki's input) made it to home video in UK and USA and it's rated G. This version aired in the States during the '80s on cable channels such as HBO and Nickelodeon. English speakers in India were more fortunate, as a second dub, encompassing the entire series, was made for India's Cartoon Network in the '90s. So were French-Canadians, who got the entire series on Radio-Canada in the late '70s (this dub, produced in Montreal, was later exported to France itself). There was also a 2015 CGI remake, which had a rather... lukewarm reception despite not straying too far from the series itself.

Video game players (especially those who may have never heard of this version of the story) may recognize part of the opening theme from the arcade game Frogger.

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Heidi Girl Of The Alps has examples of:

• Adaptational Jerkass: Inverted - Peter is not near as jealous of Klara as in the book, and does not destroy her wheelchair. Here, Klara asks the Grandpa to do it since she wants to actually start walking, but when she hesitates in a Moment of Weakness, there it goes. . ..
• Adult Fear: Parents may fear this if they see their children standing at gunpoint even if they're not aiming at them, they still could get hurt.
• Ascended Extra: Peter, and by extension his family, get more screen time.
• Big Fancy House: The Sesseman house.
• Big Friendly Dog: Grandfather has a dog named Joseph. Predictably, the "pup" is a HUGE Saint Bernard. Which perhaps makes his renaming to Bernard in the first English dub unavoidable.
• Break the Cutie: Heidi, after being sent to Frankfurt and is treated cruelly by the VERY strict Rottenmeier.
• Butt Monkey: Rottenmeier, in the last episodes. Seeing her being comically unable to adapt herself to the Alps life is freaking cathartic.
• Canon Foreigner: Joseph the Dog didn't exist in the original novel.
• Cheerful Child: Heidi and Peter.
• Children Raise You
• Cloudcuckoolander: Heidi sometimes qualifies for this, but it's probably due to her young age despite her incredible intelligence
• Dub Name Change: Joseph the dog is Bernard and Pichi is Binky Bird in the '70s English dub.
• Grumpy Old Man
• Friend or Foe: Heidi and Peter often get into fights over different things possibly due to Heidi's love for nature. Averted, they eventually reconcile and then break up again.
• Heartwarming Orphan: Heidi
• Hey, It's That Voice: In addition to the Names to Know in Anime you'd notice if you watched the original Japanese, the English dub features some big names of its own in the voice cast, including Vic Perrin as Grandfather, Janet Waldo as Aunt Dete, and Alan ("Fred Flintstone") Reed as Sebastian.
  • In the Latino Spanish dub, Heidi was among the first popular roles by Cristina Camargo. Also, Grandfather has the voice of long-time Disney and Western Animation narrator Francisco Colmenero and both Klara and Peter are voiced by Diana Santos, well-known by her Disney movies voice work.
• Ill Girl: Klara
• Lonely Rich Kid: Klara
• Large Ham: Heidi is very energetic and loud.
• Loners Are Freaks: Grandpa
• Memetic Mutation: Despite the show never having aired in its entirety in the U.S., it's become well known for a meme featuring Heidi appearing to dump Klara out of her wheelchair and leave her stranded on a cliff. An example can be found here. There's even a video version.
• Names to Know In Anime: It has a top notch cast for its day: Kazuko Sugiyama (Heidi), Noriko Ohara (TV series Peter), Rihoko Yoshida (TV series Klara), Kohei Miyauchi (Grandfather), Miyoko Aso (Rottenmeier)... although some of these voices were replaced for the movie version (see The Other Darrin below).
  • On the production staff, Takahata and Miyazaki obviously, but also a pre-Gundam Yoshiyuki Tomino on episode direction and storyboards, and a pre-Super Mario Bros./Pokemon Yoichi Kotabe on character designs. Ironically, Tomino also worked on Space Battleship Yamato, which aired on a rival network (NTV) and initially lost to Heidi in its own timeslot.
  • And the animation studio itself, Zuiyo Eizo, would later become Nippon Animation, staking a worldwide reputation on high-quality adaptations of Western kid lit just like Heidi.
• The Other Darrin: The movie edit recast some of the characters, with Yuko Maruyama as Peter (replacing Noriko Ohara) and Keiko Han as Klara (replacing Rihoko Yoshida). Sugiyama and Miyauchi reprised their roles.
• Took a Level In Jerkass: Though debatable... since Heidi doesn't know too much about guns, but in the scene where the hunters were about to shoot a deer, you'd think that she's afraid... but she's not. She then stands up for an arguement and ends it by sticking her tongue out.
• Trope Codifier: Butler or butler-like characters became quite more popular in anime after this one's airing, thanks to the presence of Sebastian. And while it wasn't the first anime adaptation of Western kid lit, it was a big influence on many of those that followed, many of which were produced by Nippon Animation (the renamed Zuiyo Eizo).
• Wise Beyond Their Years: From the get-go, Heidi is a five-year-old orphan yet she seems to talk like an 8-to-10 year-old. To be fair, later in the series she does age to such an eage.
• Yodel Land