Wakakusa no Charlotte

I just want to preface this by saying this, this show is not a great pick me up for those who are looking for something good. This is most certainly a kids show, and it shows. The characters are flat, the main character is a mary sue, and this show is very low on the quality standard in many areas. Heck you can't even show this to your kids with the way they teach: "lying is wrong, unless its to deceive someone you don't like". Now as for my reasoning for the 9 is very simple, story fluidity.

When you watch a typical anime, the show ... is split into arcs, and each arc should flow from one to the other well and with ease. What I love about this show is that the story flows from episode to episode in this fashion. Each episode has a purpose of some kind, and is used to build onto the story in some way. In other shows however, it feels more that the episodes are built into these blocks we call arcs, and when we put them side by side to each other, we just expect them to connect perfectly, and on the surface they do, but there is always a space of some sort that keeps it from staying together. That is exactly what charlotte fixes in my opinion.

Now if you want to know whether to watch this from a more grounded view, I would say the show presents a journey of sorts for the main character, not to grow, but walk in the foot steps of the people dear to her, and meet people her loved ones had once known. She doesn't show much growth in character development from my opinion even if the show explicitly says it, but that's another topic altogether.

Frankly the current summary for this show is not a good fit, because those "arcs" they bring up, while are in the show, are less "arcs" and more so conglomerated experiences that are experienced throughout the show rather than in blocks, with each one connecting themselves to the previous episodes that they are based off of.

In the end, it was a pick me up that happened to work for me for what I was in the mood for at the time, and just happen to stick with, so won't be for everyone.

So what do we have here? Another obscure anime show from the 70s by Nippon Animation? Why of course it is!

Wakakusa no Charlotte is a anime show made in 1977 by the same studio that brought us Vickie The Viking, Maya The Bee, Dogtanian and the three Muskehounds and the vast majority of the World Masterpiece Theatre shows like Heidi and Tom Sawyer.

This was Nippon Animation's first anime to target shojo demographic, predating Haikara-san ga Toru.

It lasted for 30 episodes due to pretty mediocre ratings on television as it was taken off the air because of that. However, even though the anime wasn't well known ... in it's own country, it did gain a cult following in some european countries. Including Italy.

So with that said, i wonder why this was forgotten by many except italians and other europeans and what's the show is like? That's where we can find out:

So first thing's first, the story. It's gonna be a bit difficult to tell the whole thing since what i'm about to talk about may contain some spoilers, but i'll do my best to make it briefly:

So the story is quite original. It tells the story of a girl named "Charlotte" who lives in a farm with her father Andre who was playing around with her friends and taking care of her animals.

One day, it was Charlotte's birthday and her father decided to celebrate her birthday just between these two. Having a talk, eating their dinner and Andre gave her a formal clothing as her present, all of that good stuff.

However, on that day, he decided to tell Charlotte that her mother is alive. Which he did. At first Charlotte thought he was joking (which he wasn't) and refuse to face the reality that her mother was alive, which made her upset.

Her father did explained to her why she was alive and gave her some time to adjust to the idea. Which she did.

So as things calmed down a bit and Charlotte decided to wait for her father to get her mother back home.

Unfortunately, things' turned for the worse for Charlotte as her friend, Sandy, went to look for him after hours of not coming back to village.

And by the time he came back, he told Charlotte that her father died in an accident. And after hearing his words, Charlotte got shocked with the news and decided to try to look for her father with Sandy, to no prevail.

Because of this Charlotte had to spend the rest of the year without her parents. She did eventually made a friend with an hamster when she found her at the hospital and decided to call her "Spica" and did became friends with a guardian named Knight, who wants to help her find her mother.

As days have passed since her lost of her father and her mother's absence, she met a man who looks just like Andre called Albert, who so happens to be her uncle, told and explained to Charlotte that her father was from a noble family of Montburn and told her that her mother is in france with Charlotte's grandfather.

At first, she assumed that her mother is there and agreed to go there. She embarked to france to visit her grandfather, until Knight arrived to tell her that her mother is still in Quebec. Which shocked Charlotte and tried to get out of the boat. But it was too late.

And now she has to stay in France for a while to set things right with her grandfather to let her leave france to find her real mother.

Meanwhile, a landowner is trying to steal away her farm and her animals from her. So things gotten even worse as times would go on.

But can Charlotte manage to get pass through all this terrible incidents while finding her mother and get back to her farm without ruining her life and find her happiness?

And that's pretty much how the story goes. I could go on talking more about it, but i really don't want to spoil the entire show any further than that.

So with all that said, this is one of the most beautiful stories i've seen in anime shows. It shows, expresses and tells everything that you need to know about the characters and their heartbreaking incidents that keep on happening.

The story is very well crafted and gave me lots of moments where i'd be happy, sad, angry and much more.

And the characters are also pretty great, as well.

First you have Charlotte, who is of course the main protagonist of the show. Out of all the characters that i've seen in the show, Charlotte is my favourite of them all.

I really love this character, She's one that does anything she can to find her mother while trying to avoid all the incidents that comes around her. Seeing her concerns about not just her mother, but also other people she cares for, it moved me alot. She's just a cute and poor innocent girl who just wanted to have peace. And that, i respect her alot.

There's also other characters that later on appear in the show, like Knight, who's a very gentleman who's willing to help Charlotte to find her mother, Sandy, who's a cocky but a very down-to-earth person who also helps her out whenever she's in trouble. And Sandy also has an old man named Melville who's quite comical and enjoys looking at the stars.

There's more characters that i would love to talk about, but then again, i don't want to resort into spoiling the show for everyone that never saw the show.

As far as the animation and character designs go, they look decent. You have many characters who have very unique looks and appearances in the show and some that look well detailed. Even the animals look pretty good.

Charlotte's design looks very adorable as well in many episodes, too, though sometimes there are a few instances where her looks can look a bit weird even for 70s standards. And even the opening sequence isn't any better when Charlotte holds Spica in her hands.

As for the animation, they are servicable. There are moments where the animation can look good, but there are a few that don't look as glamorous as it seems. But for the most part, the animation here is decent to say the least.

The sound is also good, too. The audio is still listenable enough and the music is also pretty good. Especially the one that's pretty catchy. And it's that one BGM where the music plays like some sort of a hip hop-ish type of music. I don't what it is, but it sounds pretty cool.

As for the voice acting, it's pretty good as well. Many seiyuus did a great job voicing their characters and express their voices in a way that makes you feel alot of emotions for them. Especially Charlotte who was voiced by Keiko Yokozawa, who did the voice of Sheeta from Laputa: Castle In The Sky and Dorami in the Doraemon 1979 anime.

So for a show that ended shortly due to weak ratings in Japan is very sad to hear it, but i'm glad that it has a huge cult following in european countries like Italy, because i really love this show.

The characters are endearing to watch, the animation is decent, the character designs look good, the music is great and catchy to listen, the story is beautiful and overall, i had a great time watching this anime.

Sadly, the only way to watch this anime is through fansubs. Fortunately, there was a person named HelenaFansubs that managed to get all the episodes and translated the entire show on her own. So you can easily find them on Youtube or GoGoAnime with no issues with it.

And if you're looking for an original anime that has a great story and great characters to love and follow, then do not miss this one. This is yet another hidden underrated gem that needs more attention than it deserves.

And it's one of thoses anime shows that i'll never forget.

It's a close call, but i'll give it an 8 out of 10. Again, it has aged alot, but the anime is still pretty good, even by 70s standard.

Anyway, this has been my review on Wakakusa no Charlotte. My name's José Diogo and i'll see you next time.