Heidi (1974)

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Anime television series
title Heidi
Original title ア ル プ ス の 少女 ハ イ ジ
transcription Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji
Heidi-Logo.svg
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
year 1974
Studio Zuiyo Eizo
length 25 minutes
Episodes 52
genre Drama, children's and youth series
Director Isao Takahata
idea Johanna Spyri
production Shigehito Takahashi
music Takeo Watanabe
First broadcast January 6 - December 29, 1974 on Fuji TV
German-language
first broadcast		 September 18, 1977 to September 24, 1978 on ZDF
synchronization

Heidi ( Japanese アルプスの少女ハイジ, Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji , literally "Alps girl Heidi") is a Japanese anime series of Zuiyo Enterprise from 1974. After the presentation of Heidi novels of Swiss author Johanna Spyri is the history of little Heidi, who lives with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps . The series is an important part of Heidi's reception story in Japan .

action

Heidi (Adelheid) is a five-year-old orphan girl who grew up with his aunt Dete after her parents died. When she takes on a job in Frankfurt am Main , she takes the child to his grumpy grandfather on the mountain pasture near Maienfeld . At first he is not happy about it, but he becomes increasingly fond of Heidi. Heidi spends happy and carefree days with her grandfather and the goat Peter, who tends the goats in the village.

One day Aunt Dete reappears on the alpine pasture and takes the now eight-year-old Heidi with her to Frankfurt am Main under an excuse. There she is supposed to keep Clara Sesemann, daughter of a wealthy businessman, sitting in a wheelchair , company and learn to read (she learns from the book Grimms Märchen ), to write and to do arithmetic. Heidi befriends twelve-year-old Clara and cheers her up. The strict housekeeper Miss Rottenmeier, however, likes Heidi less. Heidi only endures life in Frankfurt am Main through the arrival of Clara's grandmother and Mr. Sesemann's earlier.

Because Heidi misses nature and especially her grandfather, she is unhappy in the big city . She is so homesick that it makes her sick and sleepwalking. Then, after the privy councilor's diagnosis, she is allowed to go back to her grandfather in the mountains. As a farewell, she makes her friend Clara promise that she will come the following summer. The servant Sebastian brings her back to the Alm. Clara's later stay on the Alm, Heidi's encouragement and nature improve her health so much that she learns to walk.

production

Heidi was created until 1974 under the direction of Isao Takahata at Studio Zuiyo Enterprise . In addition, led Hayakawa Atsuji and Kuroda Masao Director. Responsible producer was Takahashi Shigeto . The series was also an early collaboration between director Takahata and later director and Oscar winner Hayao Miyazaki , who later founded the anime studio Ghibli . Miyazaki was responsible for scene frames and screen composition at Heidi and was involved in the concept phase. The character design and animation management lay with Yōichi Kotabe . The storyboards were written by Yoshiyuki Tomino and the artistic director was Masahiro Ioka .

For the studio founded in 1969 by Takahashi Shigehito, the series was the first own production, after initially only working as a subcontractor to other studios. So it happened that those involved, many of whom had previously joined this new production from other companies, put a lot of energy and effort into the series. Extensive research and travel were undertaken. According to Miyazaki, the production team was “in a state of emergency for a year ” in order to achieve the goals it had set itself . The aim was to create a children's series that was not as “ frivolous ”, “ adapted and sloppy ” as the productions of their time. The earlier work and Miyazaki and Takahata on elaborate cinema productions at Toei Animation also played a part in this claim. Some of the employees, including Takahata and Miyazaki, traveled to Switzerland for a month in the Maienfeld area and to Frankfurt, visited the locations and made photographs and drawings. The landscape should be modeled as realistically as possible and the series should be given an authentic atmosphere. In contrast to, for example, the American film adaptation from 1937, which was completely placed in the Black Forest , efforts were made to recreate the Alps true to nature. From a technical point of view, the claims led to the fact that, contrary to the original instruction, to expose three single images at a low cost ("shoot on threes"), as had become established in the television anime, considerably more slides were produced. So it was not infrequently 8,000 per episode, while for earlier series 2,500 cels or a little more was used in order to be able to cover costs. The animation was also staged with greater care. For a scene in the opening credits in which Peter and Heidi hold hands and dance, Miyazaki and Yōichi Kotabe were sent to the parking lot of the studio. Here they recreated the scene and took pictures to use as a template for the animation.

Except for a few details, the anime series is unusually true to the text for a television adaptation. In the 52 episodes all main and subplots of the novel could be taken up. Nevertheless, new priorities were set; Heidi's love of animals and the role of nature emphasized by introducing other animals such as the St. Bernard Joseph or the Piep bird . The conflict with Peter has been defused, who is shown less grumpy and more personable in the anime than in the book. Clara's wheelchair shatters in an accident in the anime, while Peter throws it down the mountain out of jealousy in the book. Above all, however, the character of the story changes in that the Christian undertones that show up in the religiously charged motifs of guilt, atonement and forgiveness are completely omitted, as these would have been too incomprehensible to the audience, which was both Shinto and Buddhist . At least Isao Takahata was a reader of the Heidi novels before the anime was produced. With his Heidi adaptation he wanted to react primarily to the Japanese longing for blue skies, mountains with peaks covered in white, green meadows, mountain animals and a pure, flawless innocence. Action elements were deliberately and specifically avoided and a slow narrative pace was chosen. The Swiss girl Heidi was given a sweet, amiable kawaii appeal that was establishing itself in Japan at the time. The design was based on the film Taiyō no Ōji: Horusu no Daibōken, which were still produced by Toei Animation in 1968 .

synchronization

Andrea Wagner was responsible for the German dubbed version.

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) German speaker
Heidi Kazuko Sugiyama Kristin Fiedler
Peter Noriko Ohara Thomas Ohrner
Alm-Une Kōhei Miyauchi Erik Jelde
Clara Sesemann Rihoko Yoshida Ursula Wolff
Miss Rottenmeier Miyoko Aso Tilly Lauenstein
Mr. Sesemann Taimei Suzuki Klaus Kindler
Grandmother Sesemann Natsuko Kawaji Alice Franz
Peter's grandmother Terue Nunami
Miyako Shima (episode 10 & 11)		 Tilli Breidenbach
Brigitte Akiko Tsuboi → Takako Endō Sigrid Pawlas
Privy councilor Yoshiaki Nemoto Leo Bardischewski
Sebastian Kaneta Kimotsuki Bruno W. Pantel
Johann Yoshiaki Enomoto Manfred Schmidt
Aunt Dete Taeko Nakanishi Marion Hartmann
teller Toshiko Sawada Leon Rainer

music

Takeo Watanabe composed the music . In the Japanese version, the opening credits Oshiete ( お し え て ) were sung by Kayoko Ishū and the credits by Mattete Goran ( ま っ て て ご ら ん ) by Kumiko Ōsugi , with the yodel part by Nelly Schwarz. In addition, there were the songs Yuki to Watashi ( ユ キ と わ た し ), Yūgata no Uta ( 夕 方 の 歌 ) and Peter to Watashi ( ペ ー タ ー と わ た し ) by Kumiko Ōsugi, as well as Alm no Komoriuta ( ア ル 守ム の 子 子 ル の ) within the episodes Nelly Black. The pieces were written by the children's book author and poet Eriko Kishida and, like the Japanese soundtrack, composed by Takeo Watanabe. The title song of the German dubbed version, Heidi, sung by Gitti and Erika , was composed by Christian Bruhn , the rest of the soundtrack by Gert Wilden .

publication

The first broadcast of the 52 episodes took place from January 6 to December 29, 1974 on Fuji TV . In Germany, the series was first broadcast from September 18, 1977 to September 24, 1978 by ZDF . The acquisition of the license resulted from the great success of the series Wickie und die stark Männer and Die Biene Maja, which was broadcast from 1974 and was co-produced with Zuiyo Enterprise . As a result of the licensing by ZDF and ORF , collector figures could then also be produced in Germany by the Heimo company . In addition to further co-productions, license purchases should complement and continue the animation program of the respective station in Germany or Austria. In addition to Germany, the series ran on Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Arabic and Chinese television as well as in South Africa, Mexico, India, the Netherlands and the Philippines.

The German version was released on DVD by Universum Kids from 2009.

Further exploitations

Heidi brought a quantity of merchandise for children with her that was previously unknown in Europe . Heidi appeared as a collector's figure at Heimo and subsequently also printed on bed linen, cups, coloring books, dishes, etc. In total there were over 100 Heidi products in Germany alone. Another new feature was the secondary use of the Heidi scripts as radio plays. There were ten radio play LPs and cassettes on the Poly label (children's division of Polydor ), which were later reissued by Karussell-Verlag . These radio plays contain the original dialogues with the original speakers of the animated series in a more or less abbreviated form - especially some subplots in Frankfurt have been completely cut out.

In 1975, the Spanish publisher Ediciones Recreativas commissioned a comic adaptation of the series and published it from the same year. The Bastei-Verlag published these booklets in German from 1977. The publication lasted four years and finally comprised 179 issues. An Italian translation was published by Ediboy from 1978.

Reception, effect and meaning

Success and audience impact

The series has been running regularly on Japanese television since it first aired and still has considerable ratings. Even in 2008, the yodel from the Japanese theme song is still a regular hit in Japanese karaoke bars. The series was one of the few anime that - on February 8, 1974 - made it to the TV Guide title . Its popularity was comparable to that of the most important named series of the 1970s such as Uchū Senkan Yamato , but it was especially popular with older girls.

Outside of Japan, Heidi was barely perceived as a Japanese production. In contrast to Japanese science fiction and action series that came to Europe at the same time, the anime was also not the subject of the following criticism and hostility towards Japanese productions, which particularly arose in Italy and France. The series was also very popular in Germany. According to Daniel Kothenschulte, Heidi lives above all from “ lively dialogues” , a good soundtrack and, in contrast, the reduced animation. In addition to children, seniors were a loyal audience to the series. Even in the decades after it was first broadcast, the series was repeatedly shown on German television and received positive reviews even when it was re-released on DVD. " The simple pictures still work today and are not only suitable for children, but also trigger nostalgic enthusiasm in adults" , according to Animania 2009. In 2005, the television series was even part of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art .

While the cultural scientist Ryo Kohsaka found in a survey that 90 percent of those surveyed in Japan got to know Heidi through the anime, the anime does not seem to shape the Heidi image so clearly. In terms of content, the book and the anime differ significantly in the question of how Clara's wheelchair is destroyed. When asked about the exact course of these events, a good third of the Japanese respondents decided in favor of the variant from the book, another seventh told the story as it is presented in the Swiss feature film from 1955, the rest relates to the plot in the Anime. Compared with the surveys of Swiss and German recipients, the result is that book reception in Japan is far below the Swiss rate, but, for example, clearly above that of the German respondents. They recount the anime far more often than the Japanese respondents.

analysis

In contrast to later anime, the designers at Heidi still attached great importance to an internationally understandable style of drawing, which further delimited the Heidi story and reinforced the tendency towards a time and place-independent parable. They internationalized Heidi and also managed to convey the story to a new generation of children.

The success in Germany is less due to the template, which was already well known in the German-speaking area, than to the implementation by Isao Takahata. According to Daniel Kothenschulte, he met the spirit of the children's books, which were discredited at the time in anti-authoritarian education, and at the same time carefully modernized them. In addition, the German dubbed version and the music were well suited for secondary use on cassette. Paul M. Malone explains the international success through the material, which was easily accessible to a European audience, and the unusually long storyline at the time, which was exciting across all episodes.

The anime shifted the central Heidi motif away from nature towards pure childhood, in which the term kawaii plays a central role. The cuteness culture of kawaii originated in Japan as early as the 1960s in girl mangas , but the concept only made its breakthrough in the Japanese mainstream in the 1970s, roughly at the same time as the Heidi anime was broadcast. Heidi herself only fell into a broader general social trend. Due to the temporal coincidence, however, it is a kawaii prototype in Japan.

In contrast to the successful science fiction series, which are often cited as influential for the emerging fan culture, Heidi is rarely mentioned in these contexts, although the anime may have had a similarly significant effect on the formation of a female anime fan base. While Heidi was primarily perceived as pure literature for girls in her novel form, the anime managed to overcome the gender barrier and also inspire male viewers.

aftermath

Using the style and narrative pace chosen for Heidi , Miyazaki and Takahata created a new aesthetic in mainstream anime that strongly promoted the kawaii aesthetic both inside and outside of Japan. In Europe in particular, the anime and its comic adaptations, which despite their European origins were based on the design of the original, contributed to the spread of the aesthetic and thus also prepared the subsequent releases of anime and manga. In the 1970s, Heidi was also part of a development from the chaotic, creative time of the 1960s to more studios, which emerged from the closed or less attractive older ones, to more professional work and a greater variety in terms of content and style. This includes the World Masterpiece Theater , aimed at children , the success of which Heidi founded.

The effort put into the anime put the studio in financial trouble. To avoid these, it was converted into the collecting society Zuiyō Eizō, which took over the rights to Heidi and all debts in order to be able to serve them one day with the rights sale. The film team formed the new production company, Nippon Animation , to keep working. This studio was to implement international literary works as anime series every year from 1975 to 1997 in a similar quality to Heidi . Hayao Miyazaki himself and others involved were disappointed by this experience with the medium of television, which “ requires a state of emergency as a normal state ” if one does not want to produce banal and low quality. This encouraged her to return to cinema later and eventually to found Studio Ghibli . At the same time, the research trips that the team undertook for Heidi and other series were the inspiration for later films by the studio. For Miyasaki personally, the production also brought greater experience in staging landscapes and panoramas.

literature

  • Johanna Spyri : Heidi. Heidi's apprenticeship and wandering years . With pictures by Hans G. Schellenberger. (Unabridged version of the original text from 1880.) Arena, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-401-05706-5
  • Johanna Spyri: Heidi can use what she has learned . With pictures by Hans G. Schellenberger. (Unabridged version of the original text from 1881.) Arena, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-401-05601-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Joseph Göhlen: Suspicious, but successful - The path of anime to ZDF . In: German Film Institute - DIF / German Film Museum & Museum of Applied Arts (Ed.): Ga-netchû! The Manga Anime Syndrome. Henschel Verlag, 2008. P. 238 f. ISBN 978-3-89487-607-4 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Jonathan Clements : Anime - A History . Palgrave Macmillan 2013. pp. 136, 148f. ISBN 978-1-84457-390-5 .
  3. ↑ a b c Lyn Shepard: Heidi, an ambassador for Switzerland Swiss News, October 2005
  4. ↑ a b Julia Nieder: South Wind from the Far East - The films of Studio Ghibli . In: German Film Institute - DIF / German Film Museum & Museum of Applied Arts (Ed.): Ga-netchû! The Manga Anime Syndrome. Henschel Verlag, 2008. p. 98. ISBN 978-3-89487-607-4 .
  5. ↑ a b Francis Hintereder-Emde: stereotypes in cultural mediation. Reflections on Heidi and the image of Switzerland in Japan. Pp. 377-380. In: Atsuko Onuki, Thomas Pekar (ed.): Figuration - Defiguration. Contributions to transcultural research. Iudicium, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89129-884-6 , pp. 373-383 ( The humanities series 2).
  6. ↑ Helen Hirt: Heidi, Animation, J / D, 1974: The Japanese popularizing adaptation Volkskundliches Seminar, University of Zurich 2004
  7. ↑ Tagesschau: Big in Japan
  8. ↑ a b Aya Domenig: "Cute Heidi". To Heidi's reception in Japan. Pp. 155-156. In: Ernst Halter (Ed.): Heidi. Careers of a character . Offizin, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-907496-09-4 , pp. 149-165.
  9. ^ A b c d Paul M. Malone: The Manga Publishing Scene in Europe . In: Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-2938-4 , pp. 316 f .
  10. ↑ a b Animania 08-09 / 2009, p. 23.
  11. ↑ Sebastian Keller: The Manga and its scene in Germany from the beginnings in the 1980s to the present: Manga more than just big eyes . GRIN Verlag, 2008, ISBN 3-638-94029-2 , pp. 34-35
  12. ^ Swissinfo.ch: Heidi and his alpine nirvana
  13. ↑ Video ア ル プ ス の 少女 ハ イ ジ .
  14. ↑ David Singer: Heidi Superstar. Pp. 144-145. In: Franziska Schläpfer (Ed.): Journey to Switzerland. Cultural compass for hand luggage. Unionsverlag, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-293-20420-1 , pp. 139–145 ( Unionsverlag-Taschenbuch 420).
  15. ↑ Jonathan Clements : Anime - A History . Palgrave Macmillan 2013. pp. 177f. ISBN 978-1-84457-390-5 .
  16. ↑ a b Daniel Kothenschulte: Opulence and Limitation - Styles of Early Anime . In: German Film Institute - DIF / German Film Museum & Museum of Applied Arts (Ed.): Ga-netchû! The Manga Anime Syndrome. Henschel Verlag, 2008. pp. 56f. ISBN 978-3-89487-607-4 .
  17. ↑ Bernd Dolle-Weinkauff: Fandom, Fanart, Fanzine - Reception in Germany . In: German Film Institute - DIF / German Film Museum & Museum of Applied Arts (Ed.): Ga-netchû! The Manga Anime Syndrome. Henschel Verlag, 2008. p. 214. ISBN 978-3-89487-607-4 .
  18. ^ MOMA Presents Tribute to Miyazaki and Takahata. Anime News Network, May 31, 2005, accessed December 16, 2015 .
  19. ^ Ryo Kohsaka: Storyline of Two Heidi. From the results of audience studies in Japan and central Europe. Pp. 279-283. In: Peter Lutum (Ed.): Japanizing. The Structure of Culture and Thinking in Japan. Lit Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-8067-2 , pp. 272-294.
  20. ↑ Volker Schubert: Pedagogy as Comparative Cultural Studies: Upbringing and Education in Japan VS Verlag, 2005 ISBN 3-531-14824-9 , p. 121
  21. ↑ Rebecca L. Copeland: Woman critiqued: translated essays on Japanese women's writing . University of Hawaii Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8248-2958-1 , pp. 181-183
  22. ↑ Fred Patten, Carl Macek: Watching anime, reading manga Stone Bridge Press, LLC, 2004 ISBN 1-880656-92-2 , p. 76.
  23. ↑ Jonathan Clements : Anime - A History . Palgrave Macmillan 2013. pp. 133, 135, 137. ISBN 978-1-84457-390-5 .
  24. Jump up ↑ Fred Patten, Carl Macek: Watching anime, reading manga Stone Bridge Press, LLC, 2004 ISBN 1-880656-92-2 , p. 211.
  25. ↑ Thomas Lamarre : The Anime Machine. A Media Theory of Animation . University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2009, ISBN 978-0-8166-5154-2 , pp. 40 .