''World Fairy Tale Series'' (世界名作童話シリーズ・ワ～ォ！メルヘン王国 ''Sekai meisaku dōwa shirīzu - Wa-o! Meruhen ōkoku''^?, lit. "World Masterpiece Fairy Tale Series - Wow! Fairy Tale Kingdom"; also known as: アニメ世界の童話 ''Anime sekai no dōwa'', lit. "World Fairy Tale Anime") is an Italian-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 ...

anthology series An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a differ ...

based on

fairy tales A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...

and classic stories, 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'', ' ...

, Fuji Eight and Reteitalia in 1993.

Premise

It consists of 26 episodes, each one adapting a popular fairy tale or a literature classic written by a famous author such as: the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales ...

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 ...

Carlo Collodi Carlo Lorenzini (24 November 1826 – 26 October 1890), better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi (), was an Italian author, humourist, and journalist, widely known for his fairy tale novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio''. Early life Col ...

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where '' '' is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer ...

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

Johanna Spyri Johanna Louise Spyri (; ; 12 June 1827 – 7 July 1901) was a Swiss author of novels, notably children's stories, and is best known for her book ''Heidi''. Born in Hirzel, a rural area in the canton of Canton of Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland, ...

L. Frank Baum Lyman Frank Baum (; May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the ''Oz'' series, plus 41 other novels (not includ ...

, E. T. A. Hoffmann and

Antoine Galland Antoine Galland (; 4 April 1646 – 17 February 1715) was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of '' One Thousand and One Nights'', which he called ''Les mille et une nuits''. His version of the t ...

. Most of the episodes follow quite closely the original source material, with some changes made to alter unhappy endings or to suit the half-hour episode run. Between 1975 and 1983 Toei had already produced a similar series: ''

World Famous Fairy Tale Series In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

''. Some of these fairy tales had also been adapted by Toei into feature length movies (''Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad'', ''

The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots is a 1969 Japanese cel-animated action-comedy musical film produced by Tōei Animation (then Tōei Dōga) and the second film to be directed by Kimio Yabuki. The screenplay and lyrics, written by Hisashi Inōe and Morihisa Yamamoto, is ...

'', '' Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid'', ''

Thumbelina Thumbelina (; da, Tommelise) is a literary fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen first published by C. A. Reitzel on 16 December 1835 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with "The Naughty Boy" and "The Travelling Companion" in t ...

'' and '' Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp''). The series premiered in France on

France 3 France 3 () is a French free-to-air public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5 and France Info. It is made up of a network of regional television services providing ...

in December 1994 (''Les Contes les plus célèbres''). It later aired in Italy on

Italia 1 Italia 1 (Italian pronunciation ) is an Italian free-to-air television channel on the Mediaset network, owned by MFE - MediaForEurope. It is oriented at both young and adult people. Italia 1 was launched on 3 January 1982 and, originally, was o ...

from 4 February 1995 (''Le fiabe più belle''), and in Japan on

Fuji TV JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network Sys ...

from 7 April to 29 September of the same year. A variety of different artists from other Toei's popular series worked on the episodes, such as ''Sailor Moon'''s director

Junichi Sato is a Japanese anime director, best known for working on '' shōjo''-based anime and in the magical girl genre. He was formerly associated with TYO Animations (formerly Hal Film Maker). Born in Ama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, his first major ...

and character designer

Ikuko Itoh is a Japanese animator, character designer, illustrator and animation director best known for her work on ''Sailor Moon'' and as the creator of ''Princess Tutu''. Career Ikuko Itoh graduated at Tokyo Designer Gakuin College, and started working ...

, or ''

Space Pirate Captain Harlock is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto. It was serialized in ''Play Comic'' from 1977 to 1979, with the chapters collected into five ''tankōbon'' volumes by Akita Shoten. The series follows the titular Capta ...

'', and '' Saint Seyas composer

Seiji Yokoyama was a Japanese incidental music composer from Hiroshima. He graduated from the Kunitachi College of Music in 1957. Yokoyama is best known for his work on the anime series ''Saint Seiya'' and ''Space Pirate Captain Harlock'', and for his symp ...

. The Italian Dub featured different incidental music composed by Enzo Draghi, and it served as a basis for the French, Spanish, Polish, Romanian and Greek dubs as well. The series was also popular in the Middle East, airing on

Spacetoon ( ar, سبيستون or ) is a pan-Arab free-to-air television channel that specializes in animation and children programs. It began broadcasting on 15 March 2000 and it is headquartered in Dubai, UAE with offices in Riyadh. The channel target ...

Cast

Episodes

References

External links

Official website

''World Fairy Tale Series''
at

Anime News Network Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and oth ...

's encyclopedia
''World Fairy Tale Series''
at

MyAnimeList MyAnimeList, often abbreviated as MAL, is an anime and manga social networking and social cataloging application website run by volunteers. The site provides its users with a list-like system to organize and score anime and manga. It facilita ...

* {{Toei Animation Toei Animation