Anime Himitsu no Hanazono

Aired: 1991

A girls' anime adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved novel The Secret Garden, produced by Nippon Animation and broadcast on Nippon Television. After losing her parents, young Mary is sent to her uncle's manor on the Yorkshire moors, where she discovers a long-forgotten walled garden. Together with her sickly cousin Colin and the kindhearted farm boy Dickon, she nurses the garden back to life — and in doing so, opens her own closed heart. The series renders English countryside life with delicate beauty and uses thoughtful character drama to explore the children's gradual emergence from loneliness. Yoshie Hayasaka's surprisingly bouncy OP Gyakuten Typhoon and ED Harahoro Hirehare lend the show a distinctive pop counterpoint to its tender source material.