The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (anime)

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils^[1] (ニルスのふしぎな旅, Nirusu no Fushigi na Tabi) is an anime adaptation of the novel The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf.^[2] The 52 episode series ran on the Japanese network NHK from January 1980 to March 1981.^[1] The series was the very first production by Studio Pierrot. The anime was mostly fairly true to the original, apart from the appearance of Nils' pet hamster, and the greater role allowed to the fox Smirre. The music was written by Czech composer Karel Svoboda.

The anime was also broadcast in Canada (in French), France, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Iceland (as "Nilli Hólmgeirsson"), The Netherlands, Belgium, Greece (as "Το θαυμαστό ταξίδι του Νίλς Χόλγκερσον" - "The wondrous journey of Nils Holgersson"), Bulgaria (as "Чудното пътуване на Нилс Холгерсон с дивите гъски" ("The wondrous journey of Nils Holgersson with the Wild Geese")), Poland (as "Nils and the wild geese"), Portugal, Romania, in the Arab World (as "مغامرات نيلز" Nils' Adventures), Spain, Slovenia (as "Nils Holgerson" with one s), Slovakia (again as "Nils Holgerson" with one s), Hungary (as "Nils Holgersson csodálatos utazása a vadludakkal"), Israel (as "נילס הולגרסון" - "Nils Holgersson"), Turkey (as "Uçan Kaz" ("The Flying Goose")), Italy, Hong Kong (dubbed into Cantonese), Mainland China, South Africa (Translated to Afrikaans as "Die wonderlike avonture van Niels Holgerson"), and Albania, but in some countries it was cut to allow for commercials. In Germany, the animated series episodes were also combined into one full feature animated movie (~ 1h 22min in length) in 1981; the same release has also been dubbed and released in Estonia on DVD and VHS.

Plot

Nils Holgersson is a 14-year-old farm boy, the son of poor farmers. He is lazy and disrespectful to his fellowman. In his spare time he enjoys abusing the animals in his family farm. One day Nils captures a tomte in a net while his family is at church and have left him home to memorize chapters from the Bible. The tomte proposes to Nils that if Nils frees him, the tomte will give him a huge gold coin. Nils rejects the offer and the tomte turns Nils into a tomte, which leaves him shrunken and able to talk with animals, who are thrilled to see the boy reduced to their size and are angry and hungry for revenge. While this is happening, wild geese are flying over the farm on one of their migrations, and a white farm goose called Morten attempts to join the wild ones. Nils manages to flee on Morten's back together with his new hamster friend Carrot, and they join a flock of wild geese flying towards Lapland for summer.

The wild geese, who are not pleased at all to be joined by a boy and a domestic goose, eventually take him on an adventurous trip across all the historical provinces of Sweden. They encounter many adventures and characters like Smirre. Along the ride and at the same time the characters and situations Nils encounters make him learn to help other people and not be selfish. During the trip, Nils learns that if he proves he has changed for the better, the tomte might be disposed to change him back to his normal size.

Main characters

• Nils - Nils is the main protagonist of the series. He lives with his family on a farm in southern Sweden. Nils is lazy and disrespectful to his fellowman and enjoys abusing animals in his spare time. After the farm's tomte magically shrinks Nils he becomes much smaller than all the animals and is capable of speaking and understanding animals language. Since all of the farm animals are out for revenge, Nils travels with a flock of wild geese which is flying to the north of Sweden for summer. Nils wishes to transform back to his original size.
• Carrot - Nils' little hamster friend, which also joins him on the ride. Carrot's name may also appear as Crumb and was one of Nils' closests friends.
• Morten - A goose which originally belongs to Nils' family. Nils originally flies away from his farm on Morton's back after the farm's animals are seeking to get their revenge on Nils. Nils and Morten had their differences, but at the end one can see how much they cared for each other.
• Captain Akka (Akka of Kebnekaise) - The matriarch of the wild geese flock.
• Gusta - A warm-hearted, if not very bright female goose of the flock.
• Ingrid - She was the beautiful elegant female geese, who first got captured by Smirre the jackal, but survived and partnered with Gunnar later on.
• Gunnar - At the beginning of the journey, he is quite stern. Over time and after falling in love with Ingrid, he learns to loosen up, though.
• Dunfuin -
• Smirre - Primary antagonist and evil fox, who wants to eat the wild geese, but because of Nils it never happens. It follows wild geese to the Lapland.
• Rosenbaum -
• Ondori -
• Gacho -
• Gorgo - A large, black eagle, that was found in an empty nest by Akka, years ago. She raised him and taught him how to survive by eating fish, rather than preying on animals, such as geese. Nils saved Gorgo from a zoo. Nils, Carrot and Gorgo flew the last bit together to Lappland. Unfortunately, Gorgo had to stay in Lappland when the wild geese wanted to leave Lappland when winter came again.
• Suirii - A female goose, who sings with a very high pitch voice and annoys everyone. She fell in love with Lasse (from the Afrikaans translation), while Gustav thought that she loved him.
• Ten -
• The Witch of Storm (Isatter Kajsa)-

Episodes

1. Mischievous Nils
2. Shrunken Nils
3. Riding a goose
4. SOS of the forest squirrels
5. Morten's big pinch
6. Bird strength contest
7. Battle of the mice
8. The crane's ball
9. Hungry Nils
10. Lex's evil scheme
11. Walking lead statue
12. Morten's first love
13. Goats of Hell's valley
14. Phantom town appearing on moonlit nights
15. The greedy crow and the coin bowl
16. Choose a crow boss
17. Ransomed duck child
18. The lake disappears
19. Spoiled fawn
20. Snake's revenge
21. A testy witch's prank
22. Bear twins who prowl the forest
23. Flood of swan lake
24. Operation 'To hell with Lex the guard-dog'
25. Rescue party from the sky
26. One stormy day
27. The story until now / Morten's engagement
28. Nils singing on a streetcorner
29. Arrested eagle
30. The taste of freshly baked bread
31. Monster of the forest
32. Look out, Nils: A mountain fire
33. Patrol of five
34. Battle of the spirits of sun and ice
35. Goose guard child looking for his father
36. Bird love
37. Morten the rookie papa
38. Lapland, land where the sun never sets
39. Don't follow me, Golgo
40. Wolf attack
41. Lake fire festival
42. Big man who built a forest
43. Nils's lullabye
44. Bataki shut in
45. Haunted house on a full moon
46. Sea shining silver
47. Main event of the village festival
48. Lex's new journey
49. Nils discovers a secret
50. Wild goose's present
51. To my old home
52. Goodbye, Akka

Cast

• Nils: Mami Koyama
• Carrot: Tadashi Yamazaki (character original to anime)
• Márton: Yoshito Yasuhara
• Akka: Nobuko Terashima
• Gunnar: Hideyuki Tanaka
• Ingrid: Minori Matsushima
• Gusta: Shigeru Chiba
• Lasse: Kenichi Ogata
• Suirii: Yoneko Matsukane
• Dunfin: Kumiko Takizawa
• Golgo: Tesshō Genda
• Lex: Kei Tomiyama
• Fairy: Ryōji Saikachi
• Emmerich: Sanji Hase
• Nils' Father: Masane Tsukayama
• Nils' Mother: Masako Ikeda

Regional releases

A Japanese DVD Region 2 box set of the series was produced in 2002, and a French DVD box set in 2005. The TV movie was released in Bulgaria by A-design. An English DVD release was never made. An Afrikaans DVD box set of the series was also produced

References

External links

• The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
• (in Japanese) Nils no Fushigi na Tabi
• Nils no Fushigi na Tabi on IMDb
• The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Nils no Fushigina Tabi at the Big Cartoon DataBase