.Non-American cartoon shows of my childhood Part 1 · 11:13pm Jun 10th, 2021
Huzzah everypony! It´s me Dianabel. It´s been a little while. After some stressing weeks of finals, I decided to take a little a break to do something I´ve been wanting to do for a little while.
Today I´m here to talk about one of my biggest passions: cartoons! Ever since I was a little girl, there was nothing else I loved more to talk about. And just like you, I watched Hannah Barbera, Disney, Warner Bros and many more of American origin. But today I want to shed light on some non-American shows I used to watch as a child. I don´t know if any of you watched these series, but they have very sweet stories and have that nostalgic effect, since most of these were made during the 70´s, 80´s and 90´s. So, if there´s someone who´s a fan of old cartoons, I´d recommend them to give a look to these series!
I decided to divide it into two parts. The reason why is because a lot of these shows are from a studio named Nippon Animation, previously known as Zuiyo Eizo. It´s a Japanese animation studio that adapts western novels into anime, in which fun fact, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata worked on before founding Studio Ghibli. While doing this blog, I realized that many of these series were made by this studio so to avoid mentioning it a lot of times and not make it too long, I decided to divide into two parts.
Without much further ado, let´s go and give them a quick look, shall we?
Heidi, Girl of the Alps
Oof, this one´s a childhood classic and one of the first cartoons I watched. I also remember that one of my first toys was a set of Heidi. This anime, which was crated in collaboration with Zweites Deutches, a German TV channel, is based on the Swiss novel Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Many people across the world are familiar with the story thanks to this anime, but it wasn´t very famous in the UK and the US, so I´ll sum it up for you. Basically, it tells the story of a 5 year old girl named Heidi whose aunt takes her to the Swiss Alps so that her grandfather can take care of her, since she can´t anymore due to work. In the mountains, Heidi befriends a goatherd named Pedro, whose family she´ll meet later, and a baby goat named Copito and lives adventures with them (those aren´t her name in English, but I´m so used to these names that saying otherwise sounds down straight weird). Later in the series, there´s a time in which she stays in Frankfurt because her aunt tricked her to hand her Mr Sesseman´s house. Mr Sesseman is a wealthy man who´s looking for a companion for his daughter Clara, who uses a wheelchair. There´s much more to the plot, but I don´t want to spoil it to the ones who haven´t seen the series but want to.
The series has a very sweet and playful tone but it also has its very sad moments, (most of them come from her time in Frankfurt), that will make you cry. My sister and I rewatched the series last year and believe me, we were crying our hearts out. But it also has its funny and adorable moments such as the ones in which Niebla, Heidi´s grandfather´s dog, is in. The animation and character design is gorgeous, you can see how beautifully the Swiss Alps are portrayed. My only complaint would be how they handled Clara´s disability (but this is a 70´s show based on a 19th century novel we´re talking about). Other than that, I think it´s an enjoyable show that radiates adorableness everywhere.
Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds
Of all the shows I´m going to mention in this post, I think this one is my favourite. It was created with the collaboration of BRB Internacional, a broadcasting Spanish company. This show is based on the Alexandre Dumas novel, The Three Musketeers. In terms of fidelity to the novel I can´t say much, but it´s a very good version. It´s filled with action, the characters are entertaining and the story is intriguing. My favourite character would be the protagonist, Dogtantian (for me it´s D´artacan). He´s very cute (his nose turns red when he gets mad!), he has flaws (he can be arrogant and get you on your nerves) and is a lovable character. The muskehounds are also cool characters. There´s also a mouse character named Pom (Pip in English) who was hilarious. I remember rewatching an episode with this character and laughing a lot at his expressions and sentences 
.
This series was so famous in Spain that it even had a sequel series, the Return of Dogtanian. In the series, Dogtanian has two children with Juliette, his girlfriend from the first series. Honestly, I don´t remember if I ever watched the sequel but I definitely enjoyed watching the first series. In my opinion, I think it´s more entertaining than Heidi. I guess it´s because it has more adventure and actual villains unlike Heidi. Sure, in Heidi you have Miss Rottenmeier, who is a very hated character, but she´s more of an antagonist. In Dogtanian, however, you have Cardinal Richelieu, Count Rochefor, Widimer and Milady, who were actually corrupt and evil, specially Richielieu.
Compared to Heidi, the animation and character design is simpler, but it´s still cute and fits the characters. So if you´re a fan of the Three Musketeers story, I´d definitely recommend this series 
.
Maya the Honeybee:
In my opinion, of all these series, I think this one has the most beautiful intro song.
Like Heidi, Maya the Honeybee, was made by a collaboration between Nippon Animation and ZDF, but this time Österreichischer Rundfunk (an Austrian broadcasting company) was also involved. This series is based on Waldemar Bonsels´ Maya the Bee, though the show takes many liberties due to the book´s very very dark nature. The series tells us the adventures of Maya, a curious honeybee and her friends, Willy, a lazy honeybee and Flip a friendly grasshopper. I don´t remember much of the series, since I haven´t watched it since I was a little girl. I remember thinking Maya was cute and also liking Flip. But the theme song never left my head, that´s for sure .
As you can see, like Dogtanian´s case, the animation and character design is pretty simple but still adorable and fits the characters. And like Heidi, the plot is less filled with action and more slice of life like, except for some episodes. Though I watched it, it wasn´t as exciting as the previous two and the next one. Nonetheless, it´s still a pretty sweet series.
Vicky the viking:
Aka, the viking whose gender I wasn´t really sure as a child (like Flower from Bambi, I thought he was a girl). Once again, here we have a collaboration between ZDF, ORF and Nippon Animation. This series is based on the Swedish novel Vicke Viking. It tells us the adventures of a little Viking named Vicky, son of Halvar, the chief of their village. Unlike the other men in the village, Vicky is filled with imagination and finds creative solutions to problems the Vikings might find, rubbing his nose when he thinks one.
Now that I´m grown up, I really appreciate this series. The moral it gives is a really great one: use your intelligence instead of brute force. Vicky is a small timid who´s afraid of wolves and not physically strong but he has a sharp mind and though he might get teased by the other Vikings, they still appreciate him. I think to the people who weren´t taken seriously or were made fun of at school due to not being good at sports, this is a great reminder that you can have other strengths and still be respected and loved by others. Strength isn´t only physical after all!
Of all these series, this one has the simplest character design and the sketchiest. The animation and expression are also more cartoony compared to the others. However, the exact simplicity is the essence of the series and what makes it iconic and really famous across west Europe, specially Germany, after all it was the first country to broadcast it. In 2009, they did a live action which I went to see to the cinema and I enjoyed it.
Around the World with Willy Fog:
Another series made by BRB Internacional! This one´s based on the famous Around the world in 80 days by Jules Vernes, but it has its own additions such as Tico, a Spanish mouse with an Andalusian accent.
The animation and character design is like Dogtanian´s but Willy Fog is more diverse in the chracters´ species. Dogtanian´s characters were mostly dogs, with the exception of Milady and Pom, but here you see that Willy Fog (Phileas Fogg in the novel) is a lion, Rigodon (based on Passepartout in the original novel) is a cat, Tico is a mouse and Romy (Audoua in the novel) is a panther.
Like Maya, it´s been many years since I last watched this series and I don´t remember much what happened in the story and wasn´t really interested on it, but I liked it nonetheless because Willy Fog was a lion, and I adored lions as a kid because of the Lion King, and still do but any big or small cat is my favourite animal .
So that was the first part of non American series of my childhood! Did any of you guys also watched any of these series. If so, which one was your favourite? Let me know in the comments down bellow.
