When I was watching Discotek Media’s release of Dororo, partway through the series a title card called “Calpis Manga Theater” was added to the beginning of each episode. As you might imagine, this caught my attention and I quickly found out that the Dororo anime was the first entry in what would become known as World Masterpiece Theater.
World Masterpiece Theater aired on Fuji TV from 1969 to 1997 and then from 2007 to 2009 and typically saw classic works of Western literature adapted into anime series. The title went through several name changes such as the first name I mentioned “Calpis Manga Theater” to “World Masterpiece Theater” to “House Foods World Masterpiece Theater” to name a few.
It is hard to overstate the importance these shows had on the entire anime industry. Many key figures who would go on to redefine anime started their careers working on World Masterpiece Theater shows. For instance, Heidi, Girl of the Alps in 1974 saw legendary anime directors Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and more all work together. Other series saw the involvement of Rintaro, Michiru Shimada and many others of great importance.
Many of these series also proved popular internationally with many Asian, European and South American countries producing dubs and airing these shows. However, only a couple of these shows were dubbed into English and never proved to be popular in either the U.S. or the UK. A common theory is that the content of the shows, which could often turn quite tragic, was viewed as inappropriate for children by U.S. and UK networks. I would also put forward the theory that the TV animation market was much more competitive in the U.S. and UK with companies such as Hanna-Barbera, Filmation and others dominating TV animation in those territories.
Speaking of animation companies, while some of the earliest entries of World Masterpiece Theater were animated by Osamu Tezuka’s Mushi Production, World Masterpiece Theater was predominantly animated by Nippon Animation, a company that many may know for their other titles such as Future Boy Conan, the 1999 Hunter x Hunter series and Chibi Maruko-chan.
While many World Masterpiece Theater series such as Heidi: Girl of the Alps, A Dog of Flanders, Marco: 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother and others continue to remain popular, often seeing reruns in Japan, World Masterpiece Theater itself faced a different fate. It became increasingly less popular throughout the 1990s and, in fact, its final program, Remi, Nobody’s Girl, was so unpopular that it was removed from broadcast before it had finished airing its episodes. It was briefly revived from 2007-09 but it seems unlikely that we will see any new World Masterpiece Theater series in the future.
While World Masterpiece Theater as a whole may have passed on, the impact it has had on the anime industry cannot be underestimated and I hope that someday we might see some Western distributors of anime pick up the rights to some of the most important World Masterpiece Theater series. Let me know if you had heard of World Masterpiece Theater before this article, your thoughts on World Masterpiece Theater, if you have seen any of these series and any additional information you 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 or amazon.com for all of your needs!