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Absolutely awful. Let me start off first by saying that I've read the book several times and watched several of the other more popular versions. They are some of my favorites. There is so much wrong with this adaptation that I could go on and on but I'll keep it short. The characters are characterized as weak and stupid. Sara herself is basically purity sue. She is perfect and all the others either lover or hate her. Aside from that, she is an incredibly passive version of her book self. She spends much of the series crying, ... given a limited amount of dialogue which consists of mostly "Yes, Headmistress." The other characters always come to her rescue. The whole point of the book was how she overcame her struggles through her incredible imagination, which we see very little of in this version.

The villians in this all don't seem to have lives. They are never shown doing any work despite living in a huge establishment with a skeletal staff where there would be a TON of work to do. They only seem to exist to make Sara's life miserable. Miss Minchin was a credible, shrewd villain in the book. She hated Sara but knew that she could be quite useful as an instructress as well as a help in the kitchen, a maid and errand girl, after she loses all her fortunes. This Minchin is incredibly shallow. Furthermore she is given a five minute Freudian Excuse for her behavior during a later episode. And at the end we're supposed to just forgive her nasty behavior for 20+ episodes because of it.

Lavinia was barely a side character who occasionally made trouble for Sara, not the front and center bully like she is in this. She also wasn't American in the book. None of the cast was.

There's also a potential love interest whose existence throws in a major plot hole to the whole plot.

The animation is weak even for 1980's standards. The characters make strange expressions and you can't tell what they're feeling half the time. It's also incredibly redundant. I don't need to see Sara ironing and washing dishes for eons in each episode before the head housemaid comes in and screams at her.

Please skip this and watch any of the other versions. If you're a diehard fan, then watch it, but don't expect much. The 1986 version with Amelia Shankley is the closest version to the book imo and way better than this version which, I don't think even tried.