Did You Know That There Are Pinocchio Anime?

I think it’s fair to say that the book “The Adventures of Pinocchio” has had a great impact on popular culture. Not only is it one of the most translated books of all time but it has been adapted into numerous media such as the new Guillermo del Toro film and the classic 1940 Disney animated film. Interestingly, Japan has also produced several Pinocchio adaptations, all of them animated, and, since I didn’t know about these before, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of these Pinocchio anime.

The first series that I want to take a look at is a little unusual given that it’s an international co-production between Rankin/Bass Productions, an American production company, and Dentsu Studios in Japan. Titled “The New Adventures of Pinocchio”, the series was animated in stop-motion and aired as 25 minute episodes made up of five 5 minute segments. The series also saw Tadahito Mochinaga, a legend of Asian stop-motion, working with Rankin/Bass for the very first time, a partnership that would see the production of several series and films.

In 1972, a new Pinocchio anime series called “Mock of the Oak Tree”, 樫の木モック or Kashi no Ki Mokku in Japanese, began airing. Animated by the venerable Tatsunoko Productions, the series was hand-drawn and ran for 52 episodes. From what little information I can find on the series, it appears that the series, while certainly taking artistic liberties, wasn’t afraid to adapt some of the darker content contained in the original novel. The series, notably, ended up seeing a release in the US in 1992 on HBO, albeit in a modified version.

In 1976, Nippon Animation released a new anime TV adaptation called “The Adventures of Pinocchio” which they made as a co-production with West Germany. The story of this adaptation in particular is quite loyal to the original novel with relatively few changes.

Besides these TV series, another example would be the 1980 Christmas special “Pinocchio’s Christmas”, a television special that was once again produced by Rankin/Bass, was animated in stop-motion and used a Japanese crew of animators, in some ways a successor to the New Adventures of Pinocchio. Additionally, a loose anime adaptation of the story of Pinocchio was produced as a film called “A Tree of Palme” in 2002.

It’s fascinating to see that the story of Pinocchio is popular enough in Japan to see numerous anime adaptations made. Let me know your thoughts on the Pinocchio anime, whether you’ve seen any of them, what your thoughts were on them, whether you’re aware of any other Japanese adaptations of Pinocchio and any additional information you might have on the topic.

Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!