I’ve been reading Little Women, by Louis May Alcott, and I have heard that the book is very popular in Japan. In fact, someone who once worked at the house where the Alcotts lived in Concord Mass (it’s now a museum) mentioned the many visitors from Japan who go there. This has got me thinking about Little Women and anime. So much of anime is in the slice-of-life genre and Little Women seems to fit into that mode of storytelling very well. The simple incidents in the lives of these girls, who each have their distinct personalities and little foibles, seems like a blueprint for the genre. It also ties in with the distinctively Japanese notion of capturing the essence of a specific “moment in time.” The fleetingness of a group of characters’ time in school, when a bunch of friends are together, is a typical form of this. As the girls of Little Women go through their entertaining daily adventures, enduring life while their father is away at war, they frequently display their distinctive character traits. This is not unlike a series along the lines of Ichigo Mashimaru, where part of the fun comes in knowing the natures of the girls, anticipating their behaviors and responses, and enjoying their antics in various situations. In the slice-of-life genre, the point of it is not advancing a plot, but the quite different task of creating an impression of a particular atmosphere and set of character dynamics, through repetition and the invocation of nostalgia.
Minami-ke makes me think of Little Women. Although they are three sisters, rather than four, could the Minami girls be a kind of modern anime version of Little Women? Yea, a bit of a stretch, I know. Clearly Minami-ke is a much simpler stoy. But let’s see, Kana would be closest to the outspoken Jo, but Jo is smart and Kana is foolish. Chiaki has the pretensions of Amy, but is a lot more severe. I guess Haruka is like Meg and Marmee combined? So Minami-ke doesn’t really fit, but if we take the Little Women as templates, their types do pop up in various series. Jo is like a proto-tsundere and the bashful Beth can be easily imagined as an anime character-type, like Nodoka in Negima (except with love of music exchanged with books) or Clannad’s timid Nagisa. Of course, as you might expect, there are anime versions of the book Little Women itself. Apparently, the 1987 anime version is very good and faithful to the book. Someone should sub this! For all of the leek fans out there, here’s a scene in Finnish:
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Oh actually Little Women is easily the best WMT series in my book. It has a charming story, a happy end, not so many tragic but rather intriguing characters and of course a great book it is based on. Therefore, I am really glad that there is somebody writing about it!
Ahhh… The simple joys of World Masterpiece Theater, and the aural devastation of low-budget Finnish dubbing.
Nostalgia is so very sweet.
First off mad props or whatever it is they give out these days for a literary entry! Now you point it out Little Women is rather slice-of-life-ish. I wonder if the Civil War happening offstage (as it were) has a role in putting certain things in everyone’s lives on hold. But then it’s the war, too, which lies behind the more serious moments in the book. Been a while since I’ve read it.
Hmm, progression and slice-of-life. That’s a broad topic, now.
@ IKnight: Never thought I’d see the day where a Brit used “mad props”.
Anyway, great insight into the idea that slice-of-life didn’t originate from anime — I’ll definitely keep an eye out for what you mentioned if I ever re-read Little Women in the future, although what I remember of it’s enough to affirm your theory.