When I first heard about Anne Shirley, the new Anne of Green Gables anime series from The Answer Studio, I knew exactly which scene from L.M. Montgomery’s 1908 novel I was looking forward to the most: Anne smashing her slate across the head of cocky classmate Gilbert Blythe after he teases her about her bright red hair. Fans of the books know that this is just the start of Anne and Gilbert’s relationship, which turns from bitter childhood rivals to romantic partners over the course of the entire series. It’s one of the best love stories in literature, and it starts with a smack on the back of the head that sets the tone for their entire relationship.
And the anime scene did not let me down. In fact, it’s actually become one of my favorite interpretations of the scene. Many adaptations decide to have Anne deliberately ignore Gilbert’s taunting, but Anne Shirley stays true to the original and has Anne simply daydreaming. The actual smack plays out in slow motion, with Anne dramatically rising up in a rage. When she smashes the slate on Gilbert’s head, we get to see it from a few different angles, like it’s some super-intense anime showdown and not one of the most iconic moments in children’s literature. And then, when Gilbert apologizes, he looks at Anne with big, shiny shoujo eyes — it is on. It’s clear this boy’s got it bad.
I’ve never seen a Gilbert Blythe with big sparkly shoujo eyes, but damn it makes sense, because the only proper way to adapt the big feelings of Anne of Green Gables is an anime adaptation.
This isn’t the first Anne of Green Gables anime series; that honor goes to the 1979 adaptation, though the book itself has a long history of popularity in Japan. An anime adaptation just made sense, considering how many elements of Anne of Green Gables — the plucky orphan who views life through a rosy-colored lens (who also has a flair for the dramatic), the episodic nature of the chapters, the close, almost romantic friendship between Diana and Anne — are also prevalent in popular anime.
Anne Shirley works particularly well because it fully uses the medium of animation to bolster the existing anime-like elements of the original work, as it does with the slate-smack scene. There’s also the moment Anne’s prospective guardian Matthew picks her up from the train station; we see Anne through a fish-eye lens, planting us in Matthew’s point of view and showing us how strange yet endearing this plucky orphan girl is.
Anne tends to overromanticize everything — for better or worse — and watching her gush about how gorgeous the ride to Green Gables is, then seeing the absolutely lush painted backgrounds, support those fancies. But it’s not just the scenery that’s really there; Anne has a tendency for lavish daydreams. And in this version, we actually get to see them play out when she waxes on about those imagined scenarios.
Even though it’s an animated adaptation, Anne Shirley actually grounds the story a little more. Anne is a quintessential weird little girl, which is why she’s sparked to so many readers over the past century. She’s not just a plucky orphan, but a resilient character who uses her daydreams to cope with her traumatic childhood, yet still lets her temper slip. Yes, she’s over the top sometimes, but this version of the story uses the visuals and the unique aspects of animation to pull us fully into her perspective of the world. Not all adaptations do her justice, but Anne Shirley honors the character by making the whole world a bit more indulgent to meet Anne’s energy where it is.
The first three episodes of Anne Shirley are streaming on Crunchyroll, with new episodes on Saturdays.
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