Meiken Jolie (Belle and Sebastian)

めいけんじょりぃ

Aired: 1981 - 1982

A television anime produced by MK Company and Visual 80, based on the French children's novel 'Belle et Sebastien' by Cecile Aubry. Broadcast on NHK across 52 episodes, it was a landmark adaptation of French juvenile literature for the public broadcaster. Set in the small Pyrenean village of Saint-Martin on the French-Spanish border, the story follows the orphan boy Sebastian and a feared great white mountain dog known to villagers as a savage but renamed Jolie by Sebastian (the 'Belle' of the original novel), as the two slowly form an unbreakable bond across changing seasons. Sheltering the gentle Jolie from villagers who suspect her of attacks on flocks, Sebastian grows up amid the sweeping mountain landscape. With theme music by Belgian composer Titine Schebens recorded in Antwerp, the series captures a uniquely European pastoral atmosphere and is fondly remembered in France itself to this day.