I went to watch the anime adaptation of Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window (映画『窓ぎわのトットちゃん』) for the second time last night as I wanted to write something more in depth about it. This is that post. It will be full of spoilers and I highly recommend you read the book before reading further, because I will be making a lot of cross referencing.
There are the chapters in the book, with the chapters not adapted crossed out:
The Railroad Station
The Little Girl at the Window
The New School
"I Like This School!"
The Headmaster
Lunchtime
Totto-chan Starts School
The Classroom in the Train
Lessons at Tomoe
Sea Food and Land Food
"Chew It Well!"
School Walks
"Put It All Back!"
Totto-chan's Name
A Railroad Car Arrives
The Swimming Pool
The Great Adventure
The Rehearsal Hall
Eurythmics
"The Only Thing I Want!"
Sports Day
The Library Car
Tails
Her Second Year at Tomoe*
"You're Really a Good Girl"
His Bride
"Shabby Old School"
The Hair Ribbon*
Chalk*
"Yasuaki-chan's Dead"
A Spy
Daddy's Violin
The Promise
The Tea Party
Sayonara, Sayonara!
The chapters with an asterisk were not actually adapted but somehow worked into the story. For "Her Second Year at Tomoe", the part about parents taking their children out of Tomoe was mentioned in the adaption of "Shabby Old School". "Chalk" was not explicitly mentioned, but there was a scene of the children drawing with chalk on the floor of the assembly hall. "The Hair Ribbon" also did not take place but there were scenes where Totto-chan was wearing a huge ribbon on her head.
Meanwhile, "A Railroad Car Arrives" was combined with "The Library Car" as a single episode. "Totto-chan's Name" was brought forward, to when she first introduced herself to Mr. Kobayashi in "The Headmaster" as well as when she started her first day in class in "The Classroom in the Train". "You're Really a Good Girl" was also weaved into "The Headmaster".
In "Yasuaki-chan's Dead", instead of lilies (book), the movie had them place white Japanese camelia flowers in the casket, and Totto-chan placed a single red Japanese camelia flower on his chest.
"The Tea Party" was changed slightly. Instead of being a send-off for the janitor, who was being sent to war, it was because the children were being evacuated to other parts of Japan, and so they were bidding each other farewell and talking about what they want to be when they grow up.
Some scenes not found in the book:
- Yasuaki-chan challenged Totto-chan to sumo wrestling, but Mr. Kobayashi got them to do arm wrestling instead.
- Totto-chan got herself stuck in a drain while playing hide-and-seek and had to be pulled out by her classmates.
- Totto-chan being told by her father not to use Papa and Mama anymore when the war was announced on the radio.
- Totto-chan put money into a caramel vending machine but nothing came out. (The story about caramel vending machines was told in the book's sequel.)
- Totto-chan was given a pack of 15 soybeans by her mother, who told her this was her bento for the day. Totto-chan complaining about the cold and hungry and being told off by a soldier. (This story was told in the book's sequel, but her walking to the train station with Yasuaki-chan in the rain before being told off by the soldier was not in the book's sequel. However, it is mentioned in the book that Totto-chan often walked to the train station together with Yasuaki-chan, so this could just be trying to capture that part of the book in the movie.)
- The Kuroyanagi family was stopped by a policeman while they were shopping at Ginza, and Totto-chan's mother was told off for wearing flamboyant clothes.
- Totto-chan saw street musicians walking in the apple plantations while she was on the train when being evacuated to Aomori.
- The closing narration by Kuroyanagi Tetsuko herself. (The opening narration was the phrase used in the opening of the book.)
I will update this post if I discover anything new (if I watch the movie again...)
Official website (in Japanese)
No comments:
Post a Comment