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It's going down.
A well-loved German book created by Waldemar Bonsels, which was made into an Animated Adaptation, as well as a live action film. Starring live insects.
Maya the Bee follows the life of Maya, a honeybee and her friends Willy, also a honeybee, and Flip, a grasshopper.
The anime The Adventures of Maya the Honeybee is probably the best-known incarnation. A co-production between the Japanese studio Nippon Animation (originally Zuiyo Eizo) and Austria's Apollo Film, it was originally created in Japan in 1975-76 with a second series following in 1979 (not aired in Japan until 1982). It totaled 107 episodes, but only 65 of these were ever broadcast in the U.S. during its run in the early 90s (and even then, some of those were taken from the later "New Adventures..." series). The series itself has been dubbed into over 40 languages all around the world and has even spawned a number of video games.
The premise of the anime was that Maya was tasked to collect pollen for her hive, but she ended up doing such a good job that she gathered all of the pollen around her hive, and there was none left. The queen bee then sent Maya further away from the hive in search of more pollen.
A new Maya cartoon is in the works, with Andrea Libman in the title role.
In Fall 2014, Studio100 (the current rights holders) released a film starring the character called "Maya The Bee: The Movie" which was released in Germany on September 11, 2014, with an English version released in Australia on November 1, 2014, and in the U.S. (direct-to-video) on May 19, 2015. At some point in 2015, the film was made freely available to stream for members of Amazon Prime and has since garnered a massive amount of positive attention. The movie aired on Sprout that summer, followed by the TV series in September.
A second movie has been announced and is currently in production. A teaser trailer for the 2nd movie has been released.
The anime series has two English dubs, one made in South Africa in the early 1980s (never aired in the U.S., but shown on CBC in Canada) and the second made in Montreal in 1989 for Saban Entertainment (all 52 episodes of the 1975-76 series plus 13 from the 1979 series). The South African dub (often mistaken for British due to the characters' accents) can now be seen on Amazon Instant Video in the U.S. All of the shows episodes are available. The episodes can also be viewed here. As for the Saban dub, only a few episodes are posted online, so Keep Circulating the Tapes.
- Adaptation Displacement: Most people only remember the anime, particularly the dub aired on Nick Jr. Considering the original book was written by a nationalist Nazi who made his beliefs clear within the text, this may be for the best.
- Alternate Continuity: The 2014 movie, despite using the same character designs from the CGI series, isn't connected to the 2012 series, having its own story. For example, in the movie, Maya and Willy meet for the first time in Miss Cassandra's class, much like they did in the anime. While in the CGI series, they are born on the same day and meet as soon as they come out of their cells.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: Both English dubs have different theme songs, which are both different from the original Japanese.
- Audience Shift: The anime is aimed primarily at elementary schoolers, especially girls. The CG-animated series seems to be aimed much more at preschoolers than the anime.
- Animal Talk: Despite being Funny Insects, the main characters never talk to humans. It can be presumed they're communicating using some form of insect speech.
- Specifically, they communicate through complicated dances.
- Art Shift: For the 1979 anime (which didn't air in Japan until 1982), Nippon Animation (which produced the 1975 series as well) subcontracted the animation duties out to another studio, Wako Production, resulting in character design shifts and characters having much more stereotypical "anime" facial expressions.
- Bragging Theme Tune
- Canon Foreigner: Willy, Flip and Alexander were all created for the anime, and do not appear in the original novel. Willy and Flip became so popular that they became part of the canon and have appeared in all subsequent animated adaptations; Alexander, meanwhile, appeared only in the second season of the anime and was Put on a Bus afterward.
- Channel Hop: In Japan, the 1975 anime aired on NET (now TV Asahi), and the 1979 series on TV Tokyo (belatedly in 1982).
- Four-Legged Insect: Just look at the page image.
- Funny Animal: For the most part, insects walk around as bipeds and act just like humans. Some of them even wear clothes.
- Gone Horribly Right: Maya's pollen collecting skills.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: The 1975 anime has Michiko Nomura (best known as Shizuka in Doraemon) as Maya, Masako Nozawa as Willy, Miyoko Aso as Miss Cassandra, and Ichiro Nagai (Happosai in Ranma 1/2) as Flip. Except for Nozawa, most of the characters were recast in the second series.
- Viewers of Saban's English dub will recognize the voices of prolific Montreal talent such as Pauline Little as Maya and A.J. Henderson as Flip. Willy is even played by Sardo from Are You Afraid of the Dark?
- International Coproduction: The '70s anime series were made by Nippon Animation in Japan with funding from the Austrian company Apollo Film. The second season of the anime (produced in 1979-1980) was actually shown in Europe before it aired in Japan.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Overlaps with No Export for You - Maya, not even the 65 U.S.-aired episodes, was never released on VHS or DVD in North America. Including Canada, which, unlike the U.S., did get all 107 episodes via the South African dub.
- Mouse World: A world from the perspective of a bee is a very large world indeed.
- Nice Hat: Flip has one.
- No Export for You: The sad fate of the 42 unaired episodes in North America (all from the second anime).
- The Other Darrin: Maya got a change in voice actors between the 1975 and 1979 series, from Michiko Nomura (best known as Shizuka in Doraemon) to Runa Akiyama (Sunny in Attacker You!). And naturally, the South African and Canadian dubs both feature totally different voice casts.