| Princess Sara | |
| Ja Kanji: | 小公女セーラ |
| Ja Romaji: | Shōkōjo Sēra |
| Type: | tv series |
| Director: | Fumio Kurokawa |
| Producer: | Junzō Nakajima (Nippon Animation) Taihei Ishikawa (Fuji TV) |
| Music: | Yasuo Higuchi |
| Studio: | Nippon Animation |
| Network: | Fuji TV, Animax, Family Gekijo |
| Network En: | Animax Asia |
| First: | 6 January 1985 |
| Last: | 29 December 1985 |
| Episodes: | 46 |
| Episode List: | list of Princess Sara episodes |
, also spelled as Princess Sarah for disambiguation purposes, is a Japanese anime television series based on the 1905 children's novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It aired from January to December 1985, as part of Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater. The series follows Sara Crewe, a young student of an all-girls boarding school who later becomes orphaned and is forced to work as a servant.
The anime series was remade into a Filipino live-action film adaptation, released in 1995. A Filipino television drama adaptation aired in 2007. It was also dubbed in other languages including Arabic[1] under the title, Sally (سالي) and was a huge success in the Arab World and widely popular, spanning reruns in the 1990s and early 2000s and was subsequently added to Netflix Middle East on November 19, 2020.[2]
In 1885, Captain Ralph Crewe, a wealthy English widower living in British-ruled India, enrolls his eight-year-old daughter Sara at the Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies in London. She excels in her studies and is loved deeply by her classmates and friends, but earns the hatred of class representative Lavinia Herbert and the grudge of the headmistress Miss Minchin. On her ninth birthday, Sara learns of her father's death and bankruptcy from an infuriated Miss Minchin, who decides to hire the orphaned girl as an unpaid maid in the school. Miss Minchin and Lavinia attempt to make Sara's life miserable and break her spirit, but with the help of her friends, Sara tries to endure all the hardships with her kindness and imagination.
The owner of a bakery in the city. When she saw Sara giving bread to Anne, she described Anne as an "angelic child". Later, she took Anne to her bakery.
An acquaintance of Peter, he runs a stall flower shop in the market. She remembers Sarah when she was a young lady and cares about her.
The original owner of the doll "Emily" at a clothes store in the city. Emily, which is the signboard of the store that is not for sale, is handed over to Sarah, and at the same time she receives an order for Sarah's clothes (measurement at this time will be a hint later). He has also saved a fallen Sarah.
A domestic cat of Miss Minchin's seminary.
A parrot that Sara brought from India at the time of admission. The cliché is "Sara".
At the beginning, Sarah's father Crewe brought Sarah from India to Miss Minchin's seminary in London as a companion for Sarah.When Sarah face to her father Ralph's death, it was taken away by Mr. Barrow as a mortgage of Crewe's "debt", until Sarah returned to her original life, and returned to Sarah's side with the help of Peter and Mr. Carmichael.
See also: List of Princess Sara episodes. Princess Sara, directed by Fumio Kurokawa and produced by Nippon Animation, being the eleventh entry in the World Masterpiece Theater, premiered in Japan on January 6, 1985, and concluded on December 29, 1985, after 46 episodes on Fuji TV. Shunji Saida is the character designer for the anime series. The musical score is composed by Yasuo Higuchi. The series features two pieces of theme music, both performed by Satoko Shimonari: the opening theme is, and the ending theme is . The Filipino dub of the series aired in the Philippines on ABS-CBN in 1988.[3]
It was also aired on Animax, who later broadcast the series across its respective networks worldwide, including its English language networks in South Asia and Southeast Asia, dubbing and translating the series into English under the title Princess Sarah. Animax's version was the series' only English translation, and the series has yet to be commercially released in the United States.[4]
The series has been also selected as one of the best 100 Japanese anime series of all time by the viewers of TV Asahi.[5]
The success and popularity of the anime series in the Philippines inspired a live-action film adaptation. Sarah... Ang Munting Prinsesa (lit. "Sarah, The Little Princess"), produced by Star Cinema and directed by Romy Suzara, was released on June 7, 1995. The film stars Camille Prats as Sarah Crewe. In the mid-2010s, the film was digitally restored and remastered by the ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project, which to date are restoring old damaged classic Filipino movies to a high-definition format.[6]
A Filipino television drama adaptation of the series, produced by ABS-CBN, aired from November 12 to December 21, 2007 on the Primetime Bida block. The series stars Sharlene San Pedro as Sarah Crewe. The story is loosely based on the anime series and took further creative liberties from the original source material, with fantasy elements being introduced in the story.