Toei Animation has a long and rich history that I recently devoted an article to but, because of their vast catalogue, I’m always learning about new things that they produced. My recent discovery is a film series that Toei Animation released between 1977 and 1982 called “World Masterpiece Fairy Tales” (not to be confused with World Masterpiece Theater which was released by Nippon Animation). I found them interesting enough that I thought we’d take a look at what Toei Animation’s World Masterpiece Fairy Tales films are.
Each film has “世界名作童話”, which is read as Sekai Meisaku Douwa and means World Masterpiece Fairy Tales, written before the title. The first film was released in 1977 and was called “The Wild Swans”. It adapts “The Six Swans” by the Brothers Grimm and “The Wild Swans” by Hans Christian Anderson and follows a girl called Elisa whose six brothers are turned into swans by their step-mother. In order to break the curse, she must refrain from talking or smiling for six years as she sews shirts of nettle cloth to save her brothers. The film was released in a variety of countries and was dubbed into English, Arabic, Greek etc. but the most interesting story comes from its Italian release. Heidi, Girl of the Alps had become a big hit in Italy and, due to a similarity in character design between Elisa and Heidi, The Wild Swans was renamed “Heidi Becomes A Princess” and reedited to have a vague connection to the TV series.
The second film of World Masterpiece Fairy Tales is also an adaptation of a Hans Christian Anderson story, “Thumbelina”. Released in 1978, the story follows Thumbelina, a girl about the size of a human thumb who was found and raised by an old woman but, after meeting and falling in love with a fairy prince, she’s kidnapped by toads in order to be married to one of them. Interestingly, the art direction and character designs were done by the legendary Osamu Tezuka and the film was also dubbed into a wide variety of languages although I’m not aware of any that attempted to change the brand to something more popular!
The third film was released in 1980 and was called “Twelve Months”. I’ll confess that this is the only one of the five films of World Masterpiece Fairy Tales that I was not aware of the source material prior to doing research. Based on the Slovak fairy tale of the same name which was later adapted into a play by Russian writer Samuil Marshak, Twelve Months follows Anja, an orphan girl who is sent out into a blizzard by her step-mother in order to find Galanthus, a spring wildflower, for the queen who has offered a reward of gold in exchange for the flower. The film was a coproduction with the Soviet Union with the music being composed by Vladimir Ivanovich Krivtsov.
In 1981, the fourth film of World Masterpiece Fairy Tales was released, “Swan Lake”. Using the score of the original Tchaikovsky ballet, Swan Lake follows a prince called Siegfried who, after being told by his mother that he must choose a bride before he can become king, encounters a swan who transforms into a beautiful girl who has an air of nobility and who he falls in love with. While getting released in a variety of countries, similarly to all of the prior films, it’s interesting to note that the English release of the film has the distinction of the one of the earliest films and the first animated film to be distributed by The Samuel Goldwyn Company. This resulted in the cast of the English dub containing some surprisingly well-known names such as Pam Dawber, Christopher Atkins, Kay Lenz and David Hemmings.
The final film of World Masterpiece Fairy Tales was released in 1982 and was called “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp”. Based on the story of Aladdin, the film follows Aladdin, a street kid in an Arabian city, who is tricked into going into a magic cave in order to retrieve a lamp. This lamp, it turns out, contains a genie that will grant Aladdin wishes and, in addition to a genie within a ring, Aladdin decides to use these wishes to improve his life and become wealthy. Similarly to Swan Lake, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp was distributed in America by The Samuel Goldwyn Company with the English dub seeing Christopher Atkins return while including Kristy McNichol, John Carradine and June Lockhart.
The visual style of World Masterpiece Fairy Tales really intrigues me and I hope that I’ll get the chance to see them someday. Let me know your thoughts on Toei Animation’s World Masterpiece Fairy Tales films, whether you’ve heard of or seen any of them before, what you think about The Wild Swans being modified to be part of Heidi, Girl of the Alps in Italy 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!