The Canadian classic novel Anne of Green Gables is getting a third anime adaptation called Anne Shirley, announcing their cast and staff this week.
Did you know there were already two TV anime adaptations of Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel Anne of Green Gables? Now, there is going to be a third anime adaptation by The Answer Studio called Anne Shirley. This week, they announced the main voice cast and staff. The first 1979 adaptation was headed by Studio Ghibli legend can co-founder Isao Takahata. Anne Shirley will be a reboot of Takahata’s first anime series.
Takahata was not the only legendary man on the project of the first Anne of Green Gables anime adaptation; Hayao Miyazaki (The Boy and the Heron) and Yoshifumi Kondo (Whisper of the Heart) also worked on the series. This series strangely brought the Studio Ghibli goliaths together, but makes sense why they have been successful to this day. Miyazaki served worked on the 50-episode series, doing scene and setting layout while Kondo was the character designer and animation director.
The Answer Studio, who is working on the 2025 reboot, is most notable for their work on the Tower of God anime series. That series has been through the wringer of having fans love it and hate it, an up-and-down cycle of feedback. Although, they have done some work on Makoto Shinkai’s films Your Name and Suzume, so they have some more great credits there too. Based on the visual teasers, I believe Anne Shirley is shaping up to be a beautifully-drawn, modern adaptation. Both Takahata and Katsuyoshi Watabe’s adaptations were animated by Nippon Animation as part of its World Masterpiece Theater series.
As for the cast, Honoka Inoue (EDENS ZERO, RPG Real Estate) is cast as the titular character, Anne Shirley. The rest of the main voice cast members include:
- Marilla Cuthbert voiced by Aya Nakamura
- Matthew Cuthbert voiced by Yasunori Matsumoto (Kojiro Nanjo in SK8 the Infinity)
- Gilbert Blythe voiced by Naoya Miyase (Wataru Sajo in The Dreaming Boy Is a Realist)
- Diana Barry voiced by Yume Miyamaoto (Rikka Takarada in SSSS.GRIDMAN)
“I’ve loved the world of Anne of Green Gables since I was a child, so I thought, ‘I definitely wanted to play Anne!’ from the audition,” said Inoue. “But I never thought it would happen! I thought, ‘Is this a dream?’ This is a joy that cannot be expressed in words. At the same time, I felt a lot of anxiety and pressure because it was a great title with a long history. In Anne’s phrase, ‘Isn’t it nice to have so much to discover?’ How supportive these words are for me. I am very excited and looking forward to seeing the scenery through Anne from now on!”
Based on the official Anne Shirley website, it looks like the show will be adapting Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island, the two books to follow the original Anne of Green Gables. The show is meant as a reboot, so it must be including the original novel that includes the two sequel books. This is unprecedented compared to the past two anime adaptations, which stuck more to the first book.
So, this does not answer the question: why has Japan been fascinated with the Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables from the small province of Prince Edward Island? Well, it has a long history in Japanese culture. It all first started with a kind gesture between missionary Loretta Leonard Shaw and translator Hanako Muraoka. This will be the TL;DR version of the long history.
Loretta Leonard Shaw was born in 1872 in Saint John, New Brunswick, to a family that belonged to the Wesleyan Methodist Church. She was a quick learner and great scholar, earning her the privilege to travel to Japan to fulfill her missionary work under the Missionary Society of the Church of England in Canada. Hanako Muraoka was born in 1893 in Kofu, Japan, into an impoverished family of tea merchants. At age 10, she left her parents to attend the illustrious Tokyo Eiwa Jogakuin school founded by the Methodist Church of Canada.
It was at the Tokyo Eiwa Jogakuin school where the two women met as Loretta was Muraoka’s English studies teacher. Eventually, Muraoka became a translator translating English books into Japanese. Shaw gave Muraoka many English books from her travels, where one of them was Anne of Green Gables. Unfortunately, this was Shaw’s last parting gift before returning to Canada prior to the precipice of World War II starting. Shaw died shortly after returning home to New Brunswick from cancer.
When WWII had come to an end, the Japanese publishing industry was in shambles. Apparently, it was one of the few accepted works following the war and the hard censorship and the United States trying to democratize the Japanese people. Even though using Anne of Green Gables as a political propaganda tactic, it was an inspiring novel to many Japanese women. Many noted how the character Anne Shirley provided inspiration and encouragement at freeing women from the traditional Japanese gender roles.
The national obsession with Anne of Green Gables in Japan grew in 1986 after the broadcast of Kevin Sullivan’s Anne of Green Gables (1985). The story was so popular that a Japanese businessman signed a contract to import more than 1.4 million worth of potatoes from Prince Edward Island based on the fact that they came from Anne’s island. In the 1990s, the Green Gables replica was built in the Canadian Themed Park in Japan. To this day, excerpts from the Anne of Green Gables movie scripts are used in Japan’s English exams and textbooks.
It is no wonder Montgomery’s novel is regarded as a classic, not only in Canada, but across the world in Japan too! It shows how much literature has so much influence through history. But it also shows that everyone can enjoy various works of literature and cultures. All I know is I have to visit the Canadian World Park when I travel to Japan now to see this replica of Green Gables!