Heidi

There is nostalgia in everything this show represents. The nostalgia of being a kid with not a worry in the world, of living in the countryside among the animals and breathing the fresh mountain air, of riding the proverbial rollercoaster of emotions with every small joy or sadness that life brings. I loved this show when I was 8 years old, and I love it even more now I am 26. What has changed is my understanding and appreciation of the motives of the full cast of very realistic characters. In India growing up, this was a cartoon I would wait to watch with my two brothers (we weren't pushed into watching it by a girl, as some might assume) every day. Growing up, I was glad to come by this show which was very different from the usual stories with pre-conceived good-vs-evil moral commentary. As an adult I realize that every child (boy or girl) must watch this show because it teaches lessons in kindness and enjoying the simple pleasures in life that one wouldn't necessarily learn in school or from their parents. In that way, it is more complex than the cartoons kids are usually exposed to. Although I watched the English dub when I was a kid, I'm watching the original Japanese version now and I've learnt enough Japanese to comfortably understand it even without subtitles :D As others have said of this show, it has brought me to tears on a number of occasions. I don't know if it's because of said nostalgia of my childhood, when I was living with my grandparents who I miss to this day. It could be because everything this show does is perfect -- the stories, the characters, the music. I recently watched Heidi with my mother (she is going on 56 years old now) and she couldn't help but cry on several occasions, despite having never watched the show before. A true reflection of the ability of this show to cross boundaries. 10/10

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.

This is one of the first Japanese cartoon series that reached my country (Italy) in the late '70s and by far one of the best. It follows the original book quite faithfully and its graphics is of rather excellent level for just a TV series before the computer age. The characters are very well "builded", they are completely believable and lively: they became my friends and so was for all the children I knew. Indeed, this series was so well done that everyone, not just children, not just young girls, but just EVERYONE get crazy about it: boys and girls, teenagers, parents, grandparents... still I remember how much my grandpa liked it...

This japan animated TV-series was an incredible social phenomenon in Spain.All the people in my country cried with the adventures of this charming girl in the 70's.It success was so strong that it caused that the television network that emitted it repeated a chapter by popular demand

It is really not possible to limit a work of such purity by a rating, but for all practical purposes "Heidi" deserves at least a 10 on IMDb's scale, in my opinion.

The animation is so realistically done that we not only feel for all the characters, human and otherwise, but also live, grow, smile and cry with them. And the storytelling is at once engaging, visceral, harrowing, redeeming and deeply poignant. Every frame has some subliminal emotional content that draws us deeper into the narrative.

On a personal note, "Heidi" was by a far margin the best show I enjoyed in my childhood, not just because of the fantasies it weaved but also how intensely they were interweaved with all the harshness of reality. While that may not be necessarily the ideal content for children, the feeling of emancipation at the end of it all still rings true with me.

Johanna Spyri probably could not have asked for a better visual translation of her story.