Heidi, Girl of the Alps

Heidi, Girl of the Alps
Cover of Japanese DVD 1
アルプスの少女ハイジ (Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji)
Genre	Drama
Anime television series
Directed by	Isao Takahata
Produced by	Shigehito Takahashi
Written by	Isao Matsuki
Music by	Takeo Watanabe
Studio	Zuiyo Eizo
Original network	Fuji TV
Original run	January 6, 1974 – December 29, 1974
Episodes	52

Heidi, Girl of the Alps (アルプスの少女ハイジ, Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji^?) is a 1974 Japanese anime series by Zuiyo Eizo (now Nippon Animation) based on the Swiss novel Heidi's Years of Wandering and Learning by Johanna Spyri (1880). It was directed by Isao Takahata and features contributions by numerous other anime luminaries, including Yoichi Kotabe (character design, animation director), Toyoo Ashida (co-character design, animation director), Yoshiyuki Tomino (storyboard, screenplay), and Hayao Miyazaki (scene design, layout, screenplay).

Heidi is one of several World Masterpiece Theater titles produced around the "classical children's literature period" (1974–1997), based on classic tales from the Western world. The animation studio responsible for Heidi, Zuiyo Enterprises, would split in 1975 into Nippon Animation Company, Ltd. (which employed the anime's production staff and continued with the World Masterpiece Theater franchise) and Zuiyo Company, Ltd., which retained the rights (and debt) to the Heidi TV series. The feature-length movie edit of the TV series, released in March 1979, was engineered completely by Zuiyo, with no additional involvement from Nippon Animation, Takahata or Miyazaki.

Adelheid (called Heidi) is five years old when her aunt Dette, who has raised Heidi since her parents' death four years earlier, takes Heidi to live with her formidable grandfather on the Swiss Alps. Dette has found a promising job in Frankfurt, but cannot leave while still Heidi's guardian. The only relative left is Heidi's grandfather, and in Dette's opinion, he should take some responsibility. Alm-Onji (Alps-Uncle), as Heidi's grandfather is commonly known, has a fearsome reputation with the villagers of Dörfli, as rumors claim that in his youth he killed a man. Now he lives a solitary life with his dog Josef in a cabin halfway up the mountain. However, Heidi quickly wins her way into his heart with her enthusiasm and intelligence, firmly establishing herself in his life. She spends her summer days on the mountain top with the goatherd Peter, whose responsibility it is to take the villagers' goats to the high mountains for pasture, and her winters occasionally visiting Peter's grandmother, a blind old woman whose dream is to one day hear her cherished book of psalms read to her. Alm-Onji's misanthropy prevents Heidi from going to school, of which she has no experience anyway.