Maeterlinck's Blue Bird: Tyltyl and Mytyl's Adventurous Journey

めーてるりんくのあおいとり ちるちるみちるのぼうけんりょこう

Aired: 1980

A television anime co-produced by Academy Production and Fuji Television, adapting Maurice Maeterlinck's celebrated symbolist fairy-tale play 'The Blue Bird' - a work cited in his Nobel Prize for Literature. Born to a poor woodcutter's family, the young siblings Tyltyl and Mytyl are led on Christmas Eve by the fairy Berylune on a magical search for the Blue Bird of Happiness. Accompanied by the souls of their dog Tylo and cat Tylette, they pass through the Land of Memory, the Palace of Night, the Kingdom of the Future, a graveyard and an enchanted forest, gradually understanding that true happiness has always been closer than they knew. The series carries the philosophical and allegorical weight of the original play into a children's anime format, supported by storybook-quality art direction and a warm musical score, including Midori Fukuhara's iconic opening 'Shiawase no Babiratorarira.'