Hello everyone, and welcome to Wrong Every Time. Today I’ve got all sorts of anxieties plaguing me, and thus have decided the perfect thing to clear my mind is a visit to Green Gables. When last we stopped by, Anne had just celebrated her adoption into the family by declaring war on the neighbors, affronting Rachel Lynde with such venomous barbs as “how would you like it if someone called you red-haired and freckled!?” Lynde was deeply scandalized by this display, but fortunately, Anne is as good at melodramatic apologies as she is at cutting insults, and thus peace was eventually restored.

When all was said and done, the ultimate result of Anne’s misadventure was actually a deepening of her bond with Marilla. Anne’s reluctant caretaker is at last beginning to feel a sort of motherly affection for her charge, and you just know that Anne’s going to be testing that bond with relish. Let’s see what nonsense she gets up to this time, as we return to the blooming hills of Green Gables!

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to report that the ferry ride has concluded, a carriage has been arranged, and we are on our way to Green Gables. When last we’d visited, Marilla had finally confirmed that Anne can stay, on condition that she be a good girl and learn how to say her prayers properly. Anne broke the first of these conditions pretty much immediately, rushing out the door to tell all the flowers and trees about her victory, and I can’t imagine she’ll have better luck with the second one. But the truth of it is, I doubt Marilla could imagine parting with Anne regardless, and these stern proclamations are simply the last, futile gasps at reasserting some pre-Anne order.

But Anne is not just Anne anymore, she is now Anne of Green Gables. Flush with confidence and standing on ground that is truly hers, Anne’s expansive personality is sure to reshape this family’s lives in all sorts of ways. It’s been a pleasure to spend time with Anne even in the pits of despair, so I can’t wait to see how she tackles this world with a renewed spring in her step. Let’s get right back to Green Gables!

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to the rolling hills and shimmering seas of Green Gables, where Anne has at last succeeded in winning over the obstinate Marilla. To be fair, Marilla put up quite the battle, and likely would have ruthlessly abandoned any lesser children. But Anne made swift work of her through a multi-pronged attack, demonstrating both her intense personal charm and tragic backstory on the ride to Miss Spencers’ place, and then capping that off with the looming threat of alternative adopter Blewett. Seeing Anne’s look of despair at returning to her childhood of suffering was too much for Marilla, and thus both our heroines made their way back to Green Gables.

With the initial trial of simply earning a space at Green Gables behind us, I’m looking forward to seeing the show settle into some sort of comfortable rhythm. Though Gables’ pastoral beauty and meditative pacing make for an inherently slice of life-reminiscent experience, its origin as a young adult bildungsroman means it’s unlikely to simply luxuriate in any one tone; there is conflict and momentum, it is simply illustrated at the pace of life in Green Gables. With this episode boarded by Masterpiece Theater mainstay Fumio Ikeno and scripted by Takahata himself, I’m guessing this will serve as a fine indicator of the road ahead. Let’s return to Anne of Green Gables!

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to Anne of Green Gables, a shimmering jewel of a show, and one that has been thoroughly brightening my weekly schedule. I say this in spite of the show’s last two episodes serving as a delicate lesson in heartbreak; even when Anne is down in the dumps, her personality remains vibrant and idiosyncratic, making for delightful company. Meanwhile, the world around Anne is painted in a dazzling array of colors, with distant towers and forested alleyways promising adventure around every turn. With one of anime’s greatest appreciators of pastoral beauty at the helm, Anne of Green Gables illustrates the beauty and allure of the natural world like few features I’ve witnessed – and most of those also in Takahata’s oeuvre.

For this episode, Takahata will actually be stepping back a bit, as we’re moving into the first episode he didn’t personally script and storyboard. This episode’s scriptwriter Seijiro Koyama is a regular on Anne, but otherwise only worked on the Tom Sawyer masterpiece adaptation. On the other hand, storyboarder Fumio Ikeno is a masterpiece theater mainstay, having boarded or directed on over a dozen of the block’s properties. Let’s see how Takahata’s collaborators illustrate this generous production, as we return to Anne of Green Gables!

Continue reading →

You can do it, Anne! It only took one wagon ride to convince Matthew you belonged in the family, and Marilla may well be a tougher nut to crack, but you’ve had a whole extra day to win her over. For as much as Marilla has protested over Anne’s precocious and talkative nature, it’s been easy to see her initial distrust fade into something at least a dash more warm and accommodating. And with Anne having promised to make the most of this final ride, I imagine she’ll be returning to the star-struck wonder of her first journey, with a sprinkling of melancholy to tug at Marilla’s heart. Marilla’s certainly a tough customer, but it’s hard to imagine any fundamentally decent person won’t be won over by Anne eventually.

I’m quite looking forward to seeing Anne triumph today, even though it’s also been fun to witness her larger-than-life despair. Whether in happiness or sorrow, Anne is determined to live with the intensity of her storybook heroes, with Takahata’s production providing a suitably gorgeous backdrop for her adventures. It’s been a privilege to watch and write about this profoundly generous production, and I hope you’re half as excited as I am as we return to the hills of Green Gables!

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to Anne of Green Gables, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’ve actually been looking forward to this return for most of a week now; the show has already captured my imagination, offering a window into a sedate yet beautiful world, where the peaceful mastery of Montgomery and Takahata intertwine.

Many of anime’s finest attractions advertise themselves with great fanfare, promising dazzling animation highlights and stories like nothing you’ve seen. Anne of Green Gables is more my speed: a work of extraordinary craft that still sees the mundane as worthy of attention, helping to reacquaint us with the beauty of the living world, and the profundity of small acts of kindness. I feel at home in its lovingly painted hills, and comforted by the presence of its humbly human characters. Productions this generous are an odd quirk of history, borne of production conditions that ebb and subside, never to return. I am thus thankful it exists at all, and doubly thankful to be exploring it with you readers. Let’s return to the rolling fields of Green Gables!

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to the animated classic that is Anne of Green Gables, as Anne and Matthew finally arrive at the gables in question. I say “finally,” but I should clarify that I am actually delighted by this show’s pacing. Modern slice of life anime frequently present life as a sort of shimmering snow globe, a place outside of time or context, presumably to help the audience feel distanced from their mundane concerns. In contrast, Green Gables simply presents the world as a whole at a meditative pace, allowing for the moments of rest, reflection, and even boredom that define life as it’s truly lived. It is delightful to me that we are following an episode named “Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised” with an episode called “Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised” – after all, it clearly takes at least forty to fifty minutes to properly convey two people processing a slight shock.

Of course, the actual reason this show’s pacing works so well is because the world it portrays is so lovely. Simply spending time in Takahata’s imagination is a gift, and given he both scripted and storyboarded Anne’s first four episodes, I imagine this episode will be just as charming as the last. With World Masterpiece Theater mainstay Ken’ichi Ishibashii subbing in on background art, it seems we’re in great hands as we return to Green Gables. Let’s start the show!

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I feel privileged to begin a journey through Anne of Green Gables, one of the shimmering jewels of the World Masterpiece Theater program. The World Masterpiece Theater program ran for decades, typically selecting acclaimed works of global literature, and animating them with an eye for authenticity and general appeal. The program is frankly one of the greatest achievements of anime as an art form, and tragically has no successor in the modern era – these days, adapted animation of global literature tends to focus on characters like Batman or Darth Vader, rather than children’s literary classics.

Of course, rich and poignant source material still requires delicate execution; fortunately, in its peak years, the World Masterpiece Theater program was spearheaded by the future scions of Studio Ghibli. Anne of Green Gables was directed by Isao Takahata, who comfortably stands as my favorite Ghibli director, and also one of my favorite directors period. Through films like Only Yesterday, Grave of the Fireflies, and Pom Poko, Takahata captures both the quiet beauty of natural life, as well as the unmitigated harshness of life’s cruelty and disappointment.

I imagine his instincts will be a natural fit for a pastoral drama like Anne, and he’s accompanied by his closest and best collaborators. Hayao Miyazaki serves as Anne’s setting and layout manager, while Yoshifumi Kondo is serving as character designer and animation director. Miyazaki requires no introduction, while Kondo stands alongside Satoshi Kon as one of our most tragically short-lived masters – the director of Whisper of the Heart, he was intended to be Takahata and Miyazaki’s successor at Ghibli.

Anne’s staff ranks are undoubtedly suffused with more luminaries from across anime history, but I’m eager to get to the show. The Ghibli-led Masterpiece Theater era represents one of the clear high points in anime history, an intermingling of literary substance and animation talent that has rarely been matched since. I’ve been holding off on this anime treasure trove for too long, and am thrilled to have so much Takahata work before me. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →