The Swiss author Johanna Spyri (1827-1901) wrote two “Heidi”-novels in her lifetime. The first one, Heidi’s Years of Learning and Wandering, was published in 1880 and became immediately an international bestseller. This novel tells the story of the orphan girl Heidi, who lives happily in the Swiss Alps alone with her grandfather. At the age of eight, she must leave her homeland and go to Frankfurt, a big city in Germany. But she feels unhappy in this urban environment. At last, she becomes mentally ill because of her homesickness and has to be brought back to her home. In the second novel, Heidi can use what she has learned (1881), Heidi’s friend Clara, who is physically ill and cannot walk, always sitting on a wheelchair, comes from Frankfurt to Switzerland. Thanks to the healthy mountain air and fresh organic food in the Alps, she recovers miraculously and can now walk on her own feet.

These novels were made into a movie for the first time in 1920. Since then, numerous Heidi-movies and TV series have been produced in various countries. The most popular one among them is the Japanese animated version, Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji or Heidi, The Girl of the Alps, which went on the air for the first time in 1974. This series with 52 episodes was produced by Isao Takahata (1935-2018) and Hayao Miyazaki, young artists then, who would later establish the animation Studio Ghibli. The kawaii Heidi in this animation, designed by Yoichi Kotabe (also known as the designer of video games such as “Super Mario” and “Pokémon”), made a great success not only in Japan but also in European countries, most notably in Spain and then in Spanish-speaking areas in south America.

In my presentation, I am going to compare this animation series with the original novels. The most important change introduced by the director Takahata is about the role of Christianity. In her original novel, Spyri combined the story of Heidi’s homecoming with that of the reconciliation of her grandfather with God. This storyline which identifies the grandfather with the “Prodigal Son” in the Bible does not exist in the animated version. As Takahata himself admits, he deliberately “reduced” Christian elements for the Japanese audience who apparently do not have much knowledge about the Bible. Some scholars even believe that Takahata excluded every single Christian element from his animation. But it is a misconception which derives from the German synchronized version of the series (1977/78) which tells often a totally different story from that of Takahata’s. Actually, we can find a surprising scene in this animation where Takahata loyally follows Spyri and depicts how Heidi reads a hymn by the German poet Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), a deeply religious song, for Peter’s blind grandmother and brings her into tears of joy.

“Heidi, Girl of the Alps” (Arupusu no shojo Haiji) is a television animation series directed by Isao Takahata, which was aired in Japan in 1974. It was based on the children’s novel, Heidi written by the Swiss-born author Johanna Spyri, which was originally published in two parts under the German title: Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre (Heidi’s learning and wandering years) and Heidi kann brauchen, was es gelernt hat (Heidi can use what she learned) in 1881. The original novel was translated in many countries including Japan and the Middle East and became a canon of children’s literature. The earliest Japanese translation dates from 1920 by Yaeko Nogami, and there is a Turkish translation published by Sabiha and Zekeriya Sertel in 1927. Numerous film, television and theatrical adaptations were made as well. In the various adaptations, the strong Christian message of the original novel is toned-down or filtered out, but the animation series by Takahata is faithful to the original in this regard.

The Japanese animation version was dubbed in many languages and it also aired in Iran on the official state television, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. In this paper we will introduce a case of how Iranian students coming to Germany for the first time processed and embraced their new cultural experience by recalling scenes from “Heidi” that they have seen as a child in Iran. The fact that their previously harboured images of Germany and Europe were actually formed through the Japanese animation adaptation of a Swiss novel presents an interesting example of the role of Japanese pop culture in the global flow of cultural knowledge.

This paper examines the adaptation of literary works into visual media and the interpretation process, using the example of the popular 1985 Japanese television animation “Little Princess Sara”.

‘Little Princess Sara’ （Shokojo Sera） is the tenth in a series of animated television series, World Masterpiece Theater, based on foreign children's literature since “Heidi, Girl of the Alps” was first broadcast in 1974. The original novel, A Little Princess, was published by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1888 (reprinted with additions in 1905) and tells the story of Sara, the only daughter of a wealthy man who sends her from India to London to be enrolled in a boarding school. Following her father's death, Sara is reduced to the position of a servant and endures days of hardship. The narrative is a type of Cinderella story in which Sara eventually overcomes adversity and regains her high status.

In the original work, Sara is a proud and indomitable girl who bravely faces difficulties, but in the animation, Sara is portrayed as a kind-hearted, tearful, beautiful girl who silently endures bullying. Furthermore, while in the original story, Sara resolutely leaves Miss Minchin School for Girls , but in the anime she stays on and even donates a great deal of money to the seminary. This ending, where evil is requited with good, is a notable deviation from the original work.

At the time of the anime's production, Japan was experiencing the bubble economy, and bullying in schools had become a prominent social issue. The TV drama “Oshin” (1983–1984), which aired a year before “A Little Princess Sara”, depicting a girl enduring and overcoming poverty, bullying, and servitude, had already become a cultural phenomenon throughout Japan. The anime adaptation of “Little Princess” must be seen in light of such economic and social background.

Children are inherently in a vulnerable position within society. In literature and animation, how children are portrayed and treated is of primary concern to the young readers and viewers themselves. Little Princess has been repeatedly made into plays and films for more than 100 years since its original publication, and in the portrayals of Sara one can see the reflections of the situation of children of the times. By comparing British society at the time of the original novel with Japanese society at the time of the anime's production, this study aims to examine what elements of the original resonated with the viewers of Japan in the mid-1980s and what were the modifications that were introduced to meet their particular expectations and needs.