Moomin (1990 TV series)

The Moomin family and friends. From left to right, Snufkin, Little My, Sniff, the Snork Maiden, Moominpappa, Moomin (Moomintroll) and Moominmamma.

The series begins with the arrival of spring in Moominvalley. Moomin, along with Little My, Moominpappa and Moominmamma wake up in Moominhouse, while Snufkin also comes back from his south travel on the first day of spring. The first eight episodes create a coherent storyline that is based on the third novel, Finn Family Moomintroll. During the story, Moomin and his friends find out the magical silk hat, that turns out to belong to the Hobgoblin. He later gets his hat back from the Moomin family. The Moomins later find a wrecked boat, fix it and travel to a lonely island which is full of Hattifatteners. Next, two small creatures called Thingumy and Bob with a large suitcase arrive to the Moominhouse, and they are followed by the Groke. After the Moomins manage to evict the Groke from their way by giving her Moomin's seashell, it turns out that Thingumy and Bob are keeping the large "King's Ruby" in their suitcase. After Thingummy and Bob return Moominmamma's missing handbag, the Moomins celebrate the event with a large junket, where suddenly the Hobgoblin also arrives. Finally the problem of the King's Ruby's ownership is solved with the Hobgoblin's magic.

Moomin takes place between a three-year period of time. Moomin and his family or friends manage to take part in two winter periods through the series, although the Moomins are normally supposed to fall into hibernation. Through the series, Snork, the Snork Maiden's inventor brother, designs and creates two flying ships of different type; the first is destroyed due sabotage and the second one gets finished at the end of the series. Before the second winter period, the Moomins and their friends also get to know Alicia and her grandmother, who is a witch. She teaches Alicia to become a real witch and has a negative opinion about the Moomins and their nice nature. As the series goes on, the witch however begins to appreciate them. At the end of the series, Snork decides to go on a journey with his finished flying ship while Alicia and her grandmother also leave the Moominvalley for the third winter period. The series concludes when the winter arrives, the Moomins fall into hibernation and Snufkin travels to the south once again.

Moomin is the third anime adaptation based on the novels and comic strips. Before the production, author Tove Jansson was already displeased with the previous Moomin anime adaptation from 1969 due to how unfaithful the series' characters and stories were to her original source material.[2][3] Because of this, both of the first Moomin and New Moomin from 1972 were never distributed or aired outside Japan. Since 1981, Finnish animation and commercial producer Dennis Livson began to beg the rights from Tove and Lars Jansson to make another animated adaptation.[4] Eventually, Livson managed to win both of them over after they saw his previous produced animated series Alfred J Kwak, and rights for another series were obtained. A year later in Tokyo, Livson showed a small preview of the anime series for both Tove and Lars Jansson. According to Livson, Tove commented it by saying "Dom lever ju" ("They are really alive!”).[4]

Unlike previous two anime adaptations, Moomin was co-production of Dutch company Telecable Benelux B.V. (later re-titled as Telescreen since 1998 until the acquisition to brand management & media company m4e in 2008) and Japanese animation studios Telescreen Japan Inc. and Visual 80. Hiroshi Saitō and Masayuki Kojima were the series' main directors while Akira Miyazaki did the screenplay for the first 12 and many later episodes. Tove and Lars Jansson were also involved with the screenplay by doing certain changes in scripts.

In Japan, this work "Moomin" is known as "regular broadcast even in the Gulf War". When the Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) broke out in January 17, 1991, while other TV stations in Tokyo switched to emergency broadcasting, only TV Tokyo broadcast "Moomin" as usual and attracted a lot of attention.[5][6][7] The audience rating at this time rose to one-fifth. In TV Tokyo, even if a war or an earthquake occurs, it is customary to continue regular broadcasting without broadcasting an emergency broadcast, but even now, "Moomin" is overwhelmingly mentioned as a representative example. As the same way, programs affected by the Gulf War in some way include "the Three-Eyed One" (until September 1991) and "the Top Striker" (since October 1991), these were the next programs of "Moomin". However, similarly also here, there are many cases where "Moomin" is mentioned in programs affected by the Gulf War.

The series includes plotlines taken from following Moomin books: Finn Family Moomintroll (eight episodes), Moominland Midwinter (three episodes), Moominsummer Madness (three episodes), The Exploits of Moominpappa (three episodes), Moominpappa at Sea (two episodes) and several short stories from the collection Tales from Moominvalley (five episodes in total). Roughly twenty episodes in the original series and dozen more in the sequel series are based on stories taken from Tove and Lars Jansson's Moomin comic strips. The series does have differences from the books and comic strips, more strongly than European stop-motion series The Moomins that aired between 1977 and 1982, but not as much as the previous two anime adaptations. Certain events and characters from the books and comic strips are missing in order to fit the series' own continuity or for reasons unknown. Many new plotlines and some new characters have been added, especially in the later episodes. Some notable differences include:

• Moomintroll is called simply "Moomin", except in the first episode in the Japanese version, where the narrator introduces him as "Moomintroll".
• Little My appears in the series from the beginning, but appears only in later volumes in the books.
• Lady of the Cold looks very different from the description in the books.
• In the books the Moomins exchange the King's Ruby for the Hobgoblin's top hat and the Hobgoblin later arrives, to collect the King's Ruby, with a new hat. In the series however, Hobgoblin gets his top hat back in the second episode and in the seventh episode the Moomins instead exchange the King's Ruby for a heart-shaped sea-shell Snorkmaiden gave Moomin.
  • Also the wishes are different. In the series, Snorkmaiden wishes for eyes like the Wooden Lady, Moomin wishes them back to normal after she ends up hating them, and the third wish thingumy and bob wish for a ruby just like the Hobgoblin's. In the book, Mamma wishes for Moomin to not miss Snufkin being gone, and Moomin wishes for some of the party's food to go to Snufkin.
• A Fillyjonk raises Moominpappa in the orphanage in the series, while in the books it's a Hemulen who raises him.
• Snorkmaiden and Sniff who disappear occasionally in the book series have bigger roles in the TV series and they appear quite often throughout the series.　
• Snufkin takes a friendly attitude towards people who are not in the Moomin family. He doesn't smoke a pipe in the series.
• Snork appears regularly and he's portrayed as a scientist and inventor whereas in the books he's a very minor character who mainly tries to solve varying problems with systematic approach. Snork's fixation with flying is not based on the books.
• Alicia and her grandmother (the witch) are characters who were invented for the series, they did not exist in the books or comic strips.

William Roberts replaced Peter Whitman as Moominpappa after Episode 47, due to Whitman's death.

• Opening

1. "To the World of Dream" (夢の世界へ, Yume no Sekai he) (ep: 1 - 52)
   • Singer: Emiko Shiratori / Lyricist: Emiko Shiratori / Composer: Sumio Shiratori / Arranger: Masatsugu Watanabe
2. "The Song of Magic" (おまじないの歌, Omajinai no Uta) (ep : 53 - 78)
   • Singer: the Pompin Team (Minami Takayama, Mika Kanai, Akio Ōtsuka, Takehito Koyasu, Rei Sakuma, Ryūsei Nakao)
   • Lyricist: Kiriko Seriguchi / Composer: Sumio Shiratori / Arranger: Masatsugu Watanabe
3. "Heso Magarincho" (ヘソまがりんちょ, Heso Magarincho) (ep : 79 - 104)
   • Singer: Ado Mizumori, Tairon Hashimoto
   • Lyricist: Emiko Shiratori, Futaba Ōno / Composer: Sumio Shiratori / Arranger: Masatsugu Watanabe

• Ending

1. "Far Longing" (遠いあこがれ, Tōi Akogare) (ep : 1 - 52)
   • Singer: Emiko Shiratori / Lyricist: Emiko Shiratori / Composer: Sumio Shiratori / Arranger: Masatsugu Watanabe
2. "Someday, Have a Nice Trip" (いつかすてきな旅, Itsuka Suteki na Tabi) (ep : 53 - 104)
   • Singer: Emiko Shiratori / Lyricist: Emiko Shiratori / Composer: Emiko Shiratori / Arranger: Masatsugu Watanabe

• Moomin at Tokyo MX's official website (Japanese)
• Moomin at Cartoon Network's official website (Japanese)
• Moomin at Telescreen
• Moomin at IMDb
• Tanoshii Moomin Ikka (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Tanoshii Moomin Ikka: Bōken Nikki (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Moomin at ClassicKidsTV.co.uk