Heidi

It's funny to see that Heidi, coming from the now very praised genius of Ghibli (Isao Takahata and, everyone guesses, some touches of Miyazaki) was so extremely successful in Europe and it is relatively unknown to American audiences, the ones most fascinated with Miyazaki. The story of an orphan girl who must live with her grandfather in the mountains, and how she is able to make a new life with a nearly unbeatable optimism, is told by Takahata in a style that could be Ozu on drawings. The same kind of character observation, the same kind of very long pauses between facts, and something that really surprises me, a very observatory storytelling, something that is very rare in animated series. It's extremely emotional too, but not being excessively emphatic on that. It's just an admirable animated series, very unique, and very classic, something that amazes me that had such success in Spain, Italy and Germany.

I will never forget watching this program as a child in Costa Rica in the late 70's. At the time we lived near the Pacific coast, in the jungle surrounding a banana plantation, and it was very difficult to get a TV signal. Only one channel came in, and only for a few hours a day. With my younger brother and sister, we would play the soundtrack LP of songs in Spanish over and over. For the last episode the signal that day was very poor, so my parents drove us to the beach, near Limon, and we watched on a tiny battery-powered black-and-white TV which at the time must have been the latest in technology, especially in such a place. Recently, after all these years I heard a clip of the opening music over the web and wept for hours... I will be the happiest guy the day I can get this show on DVD, especially the Spanish-dubbed version.

I watched this series when I was a kid and I really liked it. I used to see it along with robotech/macross and other anime series, but this one still makes me feel happy just to remember those old days. I used to like Heidi because I used to spend a lot time(most of my free time) on the mountains when I was a kid. The dubbing they did on the version of heidi I watched was very good and if you think that subtitles are the only way to see any manga, you're wrong. I have seen too many mistakes on subtitles from big budget movies to indi movies. At least a good dubbing like the ones they do for Latin American countries have fewer errors and sound great.

PS. I'm buying this series for my daughter and I'm sure it will be better than any American cartoon now running.

As a kid i watched Heidi like everyone of my generation kid or not...i spent a lot of money to get the dvds that are available in Spain. I live in Argentina and our money was devalued...i don't regret for a moment though...My nice is so happy that she says she is Heidi. I keep the DVD for my children that are not born yet. Looking back it means my childhood and all the good memories of a more simple time. I strongly recommend to anyone to watch them. I don't know if it is known in the USA or if it was translated to English. I have the 52 episodes. I know there are three versions...that are resumes of the series and also a movie.

This TV series was one of the first anime hits in Argentina that crossed all barriers of age and gender. Extremely sweet and gentle, Heidi has a charm that both girls, parents and even boys love (but they'll never admit to it, of course). Heidi is such a pure girl that is impossible to ignore its charm. This TV series marks one of the earliest collaborations of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. By now, you can already see the genius of both. Looking back at these 52 episodes after their successful carreers, it is interesting to see many of their themes and leit motifs appearing in Heidi that would later also surface in later works (young heroines, love for country life, lazy and silent dogs, etc). Sadly, the TV series does not seem to have been published for later generations so the only way to watch it is likely thru some old fan subs. Technically, Heidi is also very impressive to see even today. The traditional use of shadowing in anime is instead replaced by a more flat look but a bigger emphasis put in animation. Looking at it today, animation buffs will be amazed at how good the animation of Heidi was for its time, the traditionally tight budgets of TV production and the length of the series.