The Forest is Alive

もりはいきている

Aired: 1980

A mid-length theatrical anime produced by Toei Doga (now Toei Animation) and released as part of the Toei Manga Matsuri program. Adapting Soviet poet-playwright Samuil Marshak's classic stage play 'The Twelve Months,' the film is a richly Slavic winter fantasy. A gentle stepdaughter, abused by her cruel stepmother and stepsister, is sent out into the deep snow on New Year's Eve by a spoiled young queen who has demanded a basket of impossible-to-find snowdrops. Lost in the freezing forest, the girl stumbles upon a circle of campfire-warmed strangers - the spirits of the Twelve Months - who, moved by her purity of heart, conjure spring inside winter, granting her good fortune and a quiet rebuke to the unjust adults around her. The picture-book colour design and warm folk-tale tone reflect Toei Doga's finest sensibilities of the period.