is a 1978 Japanese

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

fantasy film Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction f ...

produced by

Toei Animation () is a Japanese animation studio primarily controlled by its namesake Toei Company. It has produced numerous series, including ''Sally the Witch,'' ''GeGeGe no Kitarō,'' ''Mazinger Z'', ''Galaxy Express 999'', ''Cutie Honey'', ''Dr. Slump'', ' ...

and

Tezuka Productions is a Japanese animation studio founded by Osamu Tezuka in 1968. It is known for animating notable works such as '' Marvelous Melmo'', the 1980 and 2003 ''Astro Boy'' series, and '' Black Jack''. It is also the holder of the intellectual propert ...

based on the fairy tale of the same name by

Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisti ...

. The film was first shown in Japan on 18 March 1978 in the Toei Manga Matsuri ('Toei Cartoon Festival'). The film sees "Father of Manga" Ozamu Tezuka as character designer and art director, and former

Mushi Production or Mushi Pro for short, is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Fujimidai, Nerima, Tokyo, Japan. It previously had a headquarters elsewhere in Nerima. The studio was headed by manga artist Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka started it as a rivalry wit ...

's animator Kazuko Nakamura as assistant animation director upon Tezuka's recommendation. It represents the second entry in Toei's ''World Masterpiece Fairy Tales'' movie series, preceded by ''

The Wild Swans The Wild Swans (Danish: ''De vilde svaner'') is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a princess who rescues her 11 brothers from a spell cast by an evil queen. The tale was first published on 2 October 1838 in Andersen's '' ...

'' (1977) and followed by '' Twelve Months'' (1980), ''

Swan Lake ''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoye ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, link=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failur ...

'' (1981) and '' Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp'' (1982). It is also the fourth Toei film to be based on Andersen's works, after ''

The World of Hans Christian Andersen is a 1968 Japanese-American animated fantasy film produced by Toei Doga, based on the works of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Theatrically released in Japan on March 19, 1968, the film was licensed in North America by United Artists in ...

'' (1968), ''

Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid is a Japanese anime film based on Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 The Little Mermaid, fairy tale, released in 1975 by Toei Animation. Unlike the The Little Mermaid (1989 film), Disney adaptation released 14 years later, this film is closer to Ande ...

'' (1975) and the already mentioned ''The Wild Swans''.

Plot

Thumbelina, a girl no bigger than a thumb, is born from a tulip and raised by a childless lady. One day while she's playing with her best friend Buzzer the beetle, Thumbelina meets the Prince of Tulips who falls in love with her and rename her Maya. That same evening she is kidnapped by two frogs who want to give her in marriage to their son. But the young frog, moved to pity lets Thumbelina go away with Buzzer. With the arrival of winter she finds shelter underground in the lair of the kind mouse Mrs. Chumi. Here Thumbelina catches the attention of Mr Mogul, a rich mole who asks for her hand in marriage. After various hardships, with the help of a swallow Thumbelina will be able to find the prince she was looking so much for.

Voice Cast

Additional Voices

Sanji Hase , better known by the stage name , was a Japanese voice actor and the father of Macross star Arihiro Hase. He died of lung cancer on March 8, 2002, at the age of 66. At the time of his death he was a free agent, but he had been previously represe ...

(はせさん治),

Rihoko Yoshida is a businessperson and a former Japanese voice actress. Among her most noteworthy roles are Megu-chan in ''Majokko Megu-chan'', Monsley in ''Future Boy Conan'', Maria Grace Fleed in ''UFO Robo Grendizer'', Michiru in ''Getter Robo'', Klara in '' ...

(吉田理保子),

Michiko Nomura is a Japanese actress and voice actress. Career Nomura was previously affiliated with Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society, then Aoni Production and now she is affiliated with Ken Production, an agency founded by the late Kenji Utsumi. ...

(野村道子),

Keiko Yamamoto , born August 7, 1943, is a Japanese voice actress from Osaka Prefecture. Many of her roles have been older women, young boys, or tomboyish young girls. Filmography Anime television series * Akado Suzunosuke – Akadō Suzunosuke * Andersen ...

(山本圭子), Masako Saito (斉藤昌子)

Music

The songs were composed by

Shunsuke Kikuchi was a Japanese composer who was active from the early 1960s until 2017. He specialized in incidental music for media such as television and film. Kikuchi was regarded as one of Japan's most highly demanded film and TV composers, working pri ...

and performed by Columbia Orchestra, while lyrics were written by Etsuko Bushika. # "Always in a Dream" (ゆめでいつでも, ''Yume de itsu demo'') (Singers:

Kumiko Ōsugi is a J-pop artist from Tokyo. In 1964 she recorded a song with Crown Records using the pseudonym . The first song to be released under her real name was , the opening theme for the '' Attack No. 1'' anime. She went on to perform theme songs for m ...

and The Will Beads) # "Gekogeko Song" (ゲコゲコソング, ''Gekogeko songu'') (Singers: Kyoko Kishida and The Aoni Trio)

International releases

Like ''

'', the film was dubbed in English in 1983 by Sound Shop Inc. in New York under the direction of

Peter Fernandez Peter Fernandez (January 29, 1927 – July 15, 2010) was an American actor, voice director, and writer. Despite a career extending from the 1930s, he is probably best known for his roles in the 1967 anime ''Speed Racer''. Fernandez co-wrote the ...

, and released by

Turner Program Services Turner Program Services was the former syndication arm of Turner Broadcasting. It served the same purpose as Turner Entertainment's distribution unit, with the exception that TPS was more involved in distributing television series rather than fil ...

. The movie was later released on VHS in 1984 by RCA Columbia Pictures Home Video. The movie was also released in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Hungarian, Polish, Russian and Arabic.

References

External links

Official English webpage from Toei Animation
*

at

FilmAffinity FilmAffinity is a movie recommendations website created in 2002 in Madrid, Spain by the film critic Pablo Kurt Verdú Schumann and the programmer Daniel Nicolás. As of 2016, the site listed 125,000 movies and series and had 556,000 reviews wri ...

*
Thumbelina
' at

The Big Cartoon DataBase The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows, and cartoon shorts. The BCDB project began in 1997 as a list of Disney animated featu ...

* {{Thumbelina 1978 anime films Japanese animated fantasy films Toei Animation films Films based on Thumbelina Films directed by Yûgo Serikawa