A new Anne of Green Gables anime adaptation is coming from Answer Studio. Titled Anne Shirley, an account for the series has been opened on X (formerly known as Twitter), with one of the posts stating that the series will premiere on NHK E-Tele in April 2025.
アニメ『アン・シャーリー』
** ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈**
2025年4月NHK Eテレで放送開始予定！“想像すること、とめられない。”
「赤毛のアン」を知る人も、
知らない人も、
すべての人たちへ。https://t.co/0JvAUaxV1m制作：アンサー・スタジオ#アンシャーリー#赤毛のアン pic.twitter.com/324GeOF6Em
— アニメ『アン・シャーリー』公式 2025年4月 放送開始予定！ (@anime_ann_e) November 20, 2024
Written by Lucy Maud Montgomery and published in 1908, the original book centers on an 11 year-old orphan girl named Anne who is adopted by brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert on Prince Edward Island. Wanting a boy, they intended to send her back, but instead decide to keep her.
Not many details about the new series have been revealed, but NHK has said that the show will explore the “three pillars” of Anne’s story – her newfound family, her friendship with Diana, and her budding romance with Gilbert.
This series will be the third anime to feature Anne. The previous two were produced by Nippon Animation. The first – titled Akage no An (Red-haired Anne) in Japanese – premiered in 1979, airing as part of the World Masterpiece Theater block on Fuji TV. Among the crew were future Studio Ghibli staff, including series director Isao Takahata and layout artist (for the first 15 episodes) Hayao Miyazaki. It’s viewed as a classic in Japan and is attributed to still attracting many Japanese visitors to Prince Edward Island. It received an English dub, though not in Canada as one might expect – it was actually dubbed in South Africa. This dub can be legally seen on YouTube. (It did eventually make it to Canada, but only in French.)
A second series titled Kon’nichiwa Anne: Before Green Gables aired in 2009, also part of World Masterpiece Theater (albeit a short lived revived version). Adapted from Budge Wilson’s prequel novel Before Green Gables, this series followed Anne’s journey in the years before being adopted by the Cuthberts. This series wasn’t dubbed into English, but an officially subtitled version was released on YouTube in 2020 (though has been taken down at some point since then).
