Sunday, November 5, 2006

More info. on Thumbelina
So, I did some research on Thumbelina, and I found out that it was actually originally a 26 episode anime called "Oyayubi Hime Monogatari" (literally translated to "The Story of the Thumb Princess") done by Enoki Films, that aired in Japan from March 31, 1992 until September 30, 1992.

From what I've been able to find out, it seems that there wasn't actually a movie of this series in Japan. They must have compressed certain parts of the episodes into a movie when they dubbed it, instead of translating each episode of the anime.

Thumbelina is a fairytale written by the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875). Originally known as "Tommelise" or "Tommeliden" (Tomme means inch in Danish), this story is about a tiny girl named Thumbelina who eventually marries a fairy prince, who renames her Maia (as the name is spelled in the story), since the name Thumbelina was not beautiful enough for a girl like her. (You can go to the following URL for the full story:)

http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_tiny.html

If you read my previous post, you'd be able to tell that the "Oyayubi Hime" story is quite different from the original fairytale, where a girl named Maya is shrunk down to the size of a thumb (she isn't born that way)--among many other differences. The adventures that Maya has in the Land of her Mother's Dreams, however, are similar to the adventures of Thumbelina. I wouldn't be able to make a full comparison between the original story and the anime, though, since I've never seen the Japanese episodes, only the dubbed movie, which surely left a considerable amount of the content of the anime out.

There was also a Japanese feature-length anime movie done by Toei Animation in 1978 on the story of Thumbelina, called "Sekai Meisaku Douwa Oyayubi Hime" (or "World's Famous Stories for Children: Thumb Princess"). This movie followed the original plot of the fairytale, while the TV series was more of a spin-off. An English dubbed version of this movie was released in the U.S. in the 1980's.

So, there you go. That's what I found when I researched Thumbelina on the internet. I hope you've found this very enlightening.
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