Anime Profile: Little Women

Discover Anime @ AbsoluteAnime.comYuusei Shounen Papii

Little Women (Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari) is a 1987 entry in Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater, adapting Louisa May Alcott's beloved 1868 novel across 48 episodes. Directed by Fumio Kurokawa, its staff included a number of future Studio Ghibli artists, among them character designer Yoshifumi Kondō.

Set in New England during the American Civil War, it follows the four March sisters (motherly Meg, tomboyish and aspiring writer Jo, gentle Beth, and headstrong Amy) as they grow up in genteel poverty while their father is away at the front. With their devoted mother Marmee and the lonely boy next door, Laurie, the girls weather hardship, illness, first loves, and the quiet joys of family life.

This series aired in the United States on HBO under the title Tales of Little Women. A sequel, Little Women II: Jo's Boys, followed in 1993.