Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari

I have been recently going through the old World Masterpiece Theater collection and this one is a very good adaptation of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The story is about the March family having to make ends meet in Newport (Concord), Massachusetts during the back drop of the American Civil War. The show also takes some liberties on the original story in a respectful way, mostly adding more back story to the March family and how they came to be at the beginning of the book.

The characters are balanced, Amy tends to be very unlikeable in this show at first. But you begin ... to understand her mindset as a child during the progression of the story. Jo is always assertive, but has an underling self doubt. Meg feels as though she has to help fill in a mother role for her sisters and not live out her life. And Beth is very quite and self sacrificing even if it is a detriment to her self. I think how each character is so different is what made me really enjoy them.

I really enjoyed the style, from what I understand it had some Studio Ghibli people working on it. The animation is above average for the time period, which surprised me but I guess that is typical for WMT. The art direction/design is similar to that of My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki's Delivery Service.

The sound and music are very fitting, the dubbed version has new ending and opening English tracks. But oddly all of the other music is left in place, I do not see this very often from shows during the 1980s.

I saw some of it subbed and all of it dubbed. The dub is fine for the 1980s period nothing embarrassing acting wise, and completely watchable. I would like to see it again subbed, but there does not appear to be any place at the moment to watch it completely. The dub however, is complete on Amazon Prime as I write this.

Overall I would recommend this show to people that like the work of Studio Ghibli, Louisa May Alcott, and PBS dramas. It is definitely not an action oriented show so I would not say watch it if you do not like dramas.

English is not my language.

Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari is a classic from the highly acclaimed Nippon Animation studio, and is part of the "World Masterpiece Theater" framework

Ai no Wakakusa is a simple anime about the daily life of the March family, who had to move out of their home because of the war. It is based on the classic autobiographical book "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott.

I admire the story of this anime, even though at a certain point it got a bit stale and uninteresting.

There are many interesting things in this anime, and also many exciting things, like saving a slave who escaped from ... the battlefield in the war (this happened in the author's lifetime).
At the request of Frederic, father of all the girls in the anime, they move into the house of their aunt, Martha. Martha is a bit of a grumpy person, as she thinks that most people only want her money, this because of her nephew who is always trying to extort her. The March family is quite honest, and proves that this is not their goal; they really just needed a place to live.

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When it comes to the characters, there is not much to complain about, because almost all of them are good. All the women in the March family are good characters.

Josephine is the one with the most focus, but she is not my favorite character in the novel. I like Josephine, even more because of several attitudes that she took during the series. One example: She sold her hair when her mother needed money. Well, she looked more beautiful with short hair.

Elisabeth is one of the characters I like the most. She has poor health, is a kind, thoughtful and rather shy girl who likes to play the piano.
I really like it when she makes friends with Laurie's grandfather, as it is something quite natural.
It was also a big impact when she witnessed something heavy that I won't mention. I really took pity on her.

Amy:
Amy, may be my favorite character. As much as she is spoiled and sometimes very naughty, she has a unique personality.
I was very angry when she burned the story that Josephine was writing, just because Josephine didn't take her to a theater performance.

Margaret:
I don't know much to say about her, but I like the character.
The conclusion at the end of her and Theodore's teacher's piece about her loving regardless of financial status is pretty good.

Marmee, mother of the girls:
I admire her a lot. She always advises her daughters to do the right things and is very kind. What touched me the most was when she donated her Christmas dinner to a poor family that needed food.



I've already talked a little bit about why I like the main characters, so I'll briefly talk about Laurie and her grandfather and Martha.

Laurie:
Laurie spends a lot of boredom studying at her grandfather's house, until he meets Josephine. He is a good guy and always helps others when he needs it.
As the story goes on a relationship develops between him and Josephine, and everyone thinks they will be together, but unfortunately that didn't happen.

Laurie's Grandfather:
He is strict with his grandson, as he wants him to inherit his company.
At first it seems that he is not so good, but he is gentle. He begins to admire the March family when he finds out that they donated their Christmas dinner to a family in need.
He is kind enough to let Elisabeth come to his house to play the piano, and after a while he presents her with a piano, because hers was lost in her old house because of the war, and the one she has in her new house is old and has a bad sound.

Martha:
I already mentioned myself a little bit about her up there, so I'll just supplement a little bit.
As much as she's kind of grouchy (with reasons that are cited in the anime), she's also good people. We see more of this as the anime goes on, with her relationship with the March family, specifically with Josephine.
There comes a point where she wants to leave her inheritance to the girls of the March family, and this happens, reading the synopsis of the second season.
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I talked more about the characters, because the focus of the anime is literally on the characters and their interactions. I didn't go into detail because I don't want to narrate the whole anime in this review.

The technical part of the anime is ok.

For those who want to see a Slice of Life with good characters and good interactions between them, I recommend this anime.
For me, it declined a little in certain parts, but it is a good anime as a whole, this classic is worth checking out.