When I first started getting deeper into the anime/manga fandom as a whole, I hadn't quite refined my tastes. It wasn't until 2010-2011 when I discovered what genres I really gravitated to. I know I definitely gravitated towards the World Masterpiece Theater and their adaptations of classic Western kids novels like Anne of Green Gables, A Little Princess, Little Women, Dog of Flanders, and so on. That inspired me to seek out the actual novels they were based on in question when I was in high school and college. There was one classic children's book that I noticed didn't get that treatment: Rebecca of SunnyBrookFarm, by Kate Douglas Wiggin. It's been years since I read the book, but I still own it, and I think it's just okay at best, but I like it well enough. The thing is, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm hasn't had very good luck when it came to being adapted for the screen. There are three movies made for it, none of which were faithful to the story in any way, with the 1938 one starring Shirley Temple being absolutely nothing like the original book at all. There was a short mini series that aired in England in 1978, but I can't find anything on that. So yeah, it hasn't had much success when it came to being adapted for film, and while I like other Western books more than Rebecca, I was saddened by the idea that this sweet book would probably never get anything resembling a faithful adaptation in any format. It didn't help that the WMT shut down in 2009 because of the fact that, as an article on ANN mentioned, Japan lost interest in children's anime based on Western stories. Since Rebecca never got that treatment, and nobody cared for it years after its publication, I thought it was doomed to be forgotten and fade into obscurity.
OR WAS IT?!
By some miracle, somebody had the bright idea of turning Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm into a half-hour long anime short film that premiered in March 2020, alongside two other shorts, as part of the yearly Young Animators' Training Project for 2020. And thus, Rebecca, or The Chronicles of Rebecca, was born. I honestly had no idea this even existed until the day after Christmas, and I noticed on the Wikipedia article for the book that it had somehow gotten an anime short based on it. Needless to say, I tracked it down right away, and it turned out to be easier to find than I thought. Also, this short is friggin' awesome! It's just oozing with great animation and that World Masterpiece Theater charm I love so much. Whoever decided to take a chance on this and bring The Chronicles of Rebecca to life, I friggin' love you. After seeing it, I can wholeheartedly say that this might be the most faithful adaptation of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm yet, and the short doesn't even cover the entire story!
Now, you're probably wondering what this short film is even about. The short film is only half an hour long, only covering one part of the novel. Having read it, here's what the novel is generally about: Rebecca Randall is a fun-loving ten-year-old girl who lives with her large but impoverished family on a farm. When her father dies, life on the farm gets harder, and her mother can't handle raising so many children, so she sends Rebecca to live with her two aunts in the town of Riverboro, Maine. The aunts in question, Miranda and Jane Sawyer, are more interested in Rebecca's older sister Hannah, as she's good with housework, but Rebecca's mother still needs her help, so Rebecca is sent to live with them instead, so she can get an education and a better life. Rebecca gets along with Jane just fine, but Miranda is strict and uptight, put off by Rebecca's free-spirited, imaginative, but careless personality that's typical of any child her age. But Rebecca's unrelenting optimism breathes life into the people around her, making their days just a little better. A lot of this is just explained in narration at the very beginning of the short film, as being half an hour long, it can't exactly afford to adapt the entire novel. The producers seemed to realize this, as they made the very smart move of just adapting one event from the novel that occurs across three chapters.
And really, it's easy to see that this short was made by people who absolutely know what they're doing, because the results are just incredible. The animation is really smooth and full of bright colors that just pop right off the screen, from the detailed backgrounds that are true to the time period the story takes place in, to the slightly simplistic character designs that strike a perfect balance between being both cartoony and realistic, similar to stuff like Les Miserables Shoujo Cosette or Konnichiwa Anne. I also love the short's usage of lighting and weather when conveying mood and atmosphere, such as how a room lights up when Rebecca is happy or comes to an epiphany, or how dark, somber the dining room is when Miranda and Jane are having dinner after Rebecca is sent to her room, conveying the tense atmosphere between them. Even the usage of English writing is pretty on point, and I didn't notice any spelling mistakes or basic grammatical errors, which even some WMT shows are pretty guilty of at times. The soundtrack is also very pleasant too, relying heavily on violins, fiddles, and woodwind instruments that give the short a homey, country feel about it, again, similar to that of WMT shows like Konnichiwa Anne and Les Miserables. I will admit though, the ending song is kind of cheesy and a little too mealymouthed for my liking.
Of course, the cast of characters is where Rebecca really shines. Being a half hour long short, the creators knew they wouldn't be able to cover the entire story, so they chose to adapt just three chapters, all of them covering one significant event that occurs across those three chapters. Since the cast is kept relatively small, this leaves ample time for the producers to flesh them out and develop them within that half hour, and honestly, I think they pulled it off impeccably. Every character has their own unique sets of strengths, flaws, and weaknesses, and the short shows how they overcome them over the course of the short film, and even when the characters do things they shouldn't, whether it be because they were just careless or are blinded by bad events from the past, the short film is extremely careful not to portray either side as being completely 100% wrong or right. Both sides have valid points in the main conflict, and Rebecca acknowledges such, as the moral behind it is recognizing one's faults and amending them so you can grow as a person. Every character changes over the course of half an hour wonderfully: Rebecca learns to appreciate her situation and her own good qualities, Miranda learns to be less strict, more flexible, and to not let her own biases affect her judgment and relationship with Rebecca, and Jane learns to stand up for herself and call out her sister's callousness. It helps that the short film trusts its audience enough to not bash the message over their heads, letting the story convey the message organically, and never coming across as patronizing or condescending. Yes, it's a very simple story, and probably one that's been done before in many other places, but I've always held the philosophy that as long as you care about the product, actually put effort into it, and are passionate about it, you can make anything genuinely good. Seriously, this is what I wanted out of, say, something like Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure, which refuses to actually flesh out its characters in any meaningful way in favor of zany comedy and needless filler that goes nowhere, and the few times it does try to flesh out its characters comes way too little, way too late for the audience to even care enough to invest in them anymore. It's really amazing how some anime seem to believe that boilerplate isekai, action, nude ladies, or flashy animation is a good substitute for substance, actual conflict, and characters that are relatable and interesting. Rebecca is able to achieve in half an hour what most shows nowadays that are 20-something episodes or longer just refuse to.
As far as its faithfulness to the book goes, having re-read the chapters in question, I think the short film's adaptation of them is pretty faithful, with the only deviation being at the very end. But for once, the changes make sense, given the short film's overall format, and the new material it puts in not only fleshes out the characters more, but ends the story on a very sweet, heartwarming note, I feel. It's inevitable that adaptations don't always adapt everything from their original source, and changes do get made in the transition from one medium to another. Some for the better, some for the worse, and any changes needed have to make sense (One example of a bad adaptation is M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, which makes extremely basic mistakes in regards to the series' lore that cause huge plotholes and make the characters seem like complete idiots. The Nostalgia Critic's review of it elaborates on how terrible the changes that movie made are). I think the changes Rebecca did make manage to keep it fresh while staying true to the heart of both the story and the source material. If put in less qualified hands, Rebecca as a short probably wouldn't be as good as the final product we got, and frankly, I'm absolutely elated to see that Rebecca turned out the way it did. It's stuff like this that reminds me of why I love anime, and that there's hope for the anime industry yet. My only other gripe with Rebecca is that it's too damn short! I would kill for an entire series on Rebecca as a whole, and it's clear the people who worked on this really cared about bringing this story to life. I, and probably many others who are craving more stories similar to the stuff in the WMT, would absolutely devour a whole series based on Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. But since the anime industry doesn't really care much for stories like these anymore, I know that'll probably never happen. But for what it is, I'm happy that we at least got something like Rebecca at all, and I really hope the people who worked on this get to achieve great things in the future.
In short, The Chronicles of Rebecca is a sweet, heartwarming, truly enjoyable short film that deserves all the love in the world, and I'm glad Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm finally got a great, faithful adaptation for once.
