Version française

• Series length: 49 episodes
• Director: SAITÔ Hiroshi
• Music: FUYUKI Hideki (credited by NA; the soundtrack is largely based on Jean Sibelius' work)
• Original novel: "Paimen, piika ja emäntä" by Auni Nuolivaara, a Finnish author.
• Episodes list (French, Italian)
• Images (cells)

Story:

1915. There have now been three years since the mother of little Katri Ukomeni left for Germany. With Finland still being under Russian domination, nobody has had any news since war broke out, and no one knows when she'll finally be able to see her daughter again, who is now living with her grand parents. But time has become hard for them: the harvest was poor and with their only cow having been killed by a bear they now have huge financial problems. Katri wants to help them and decides to work as a cattle girl in a farm of a neighbour village. For the 9 year old little girl, this experience will be like discovering the world.

Things won't be as they used to any more. Though the technical qualities of the WMT had been increasing for several years, Katri is the first one to truly reach the highest standard. The variety of the colours, the details in the backgrounds, the finesse of the character design and the character animation showing all their movements: this time, nothing is missing. Some later Meisakus will have higher technical qualities, but none will create a gap like the one between Katri and its predecessors.

The series bears much resemblance with Little Women. Both stories are focused on the characters' everyday life instead of relying on an exciting plot (a typical scene shows Katri reading, keeping the cows or speaking with friends). Both have a strong historical context in the background: it's not the Secession War that makes father leave his family but World War I that separates mother and daughter. However, the reconstitution work is much more important here than it will be in Little Women three years later. The story naturally deals with the war and all the political issues regarding Finland at the eve of its independence, it of course refers to the traditions of the country thanks for example the music (cf. below) or the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. But Nippon Animation went far further, extensively describing all the everyday life of the Finnish farmers, and succeeding in bringing alive this stage where life was rythmed by the hemp harvest and the sheep shearing, where saunas and evenings round a fire were all the entertainment, where bears and wolves were still threatening enemies. The accuracy of these descriptions and the peaceful rhythm of the mise en scène give this series something bewitching I rarely found in anime: you just have to sit down and let yourself rocked to feel thrown 80 years backwards.

The second major strength of this series is definitely its beautiful BGM: Katri's music is based on Jean Sibelius's work, the founder of Finnish musical tradition. Music lovers will probably recognise samples from Karelia (op. 11), Leminkaïnen suite (Four Legends op. 22) based on Finnish folklore, and above all Finlandia (op.26 n°7). Finlandia, this majestic piece whose becoming the main theme of the series sounds like another allusion to its political context: Sibelius indeed wrote it in the end of 19th Century as part of nationalist movements (Press Pension Celebrations), and the piece immediatly became the symbol of the fight of the Finnish people for his independence. But beyond its cultural and historical value, this beautiful music matches the series very well, and constitutes a BGM whose quality is close to Little Princess Sara's; perhaps not speaking about the variety of the pieces (the same ones are often re-used), but at least as far as their quality is concerned.

Perhaps a little reproach for the direction itself: though it's overall good, the transition between some scenes is a bit abrupt, and I remember having sometimes felt a little surprised by the jump between a sequence and the following. The action doesn't flow as smoothly as in the series directed by Isao TAKAHATA or Fumio KUROKAWA. Same applies with the very ending, which falls truly short and leaves us a bit frustrated. The character development also gives me a balanced feeling. Katri is somehow very well worked out. Her psychology of child who discovers that the world is bigger than her little country village is very well described. A great deal of subtlety is also used to depict the way the ambition to do something she can be proud of without renying her origins and her love of rural life grows in her. On the other hand, she sometimes too much acts like a "wise and dutiful little girl", who would spend her days working and helping others. The other main characters are usually pretty well developed, but they too often fall in love with Katri at the first glance and then try to act like protectors under any circumstances. All this finally makes this series less vivid than Little Women in my mind.

But the overall quality remains exceptional, and the chronic lack of popularity of this series in Europe will always sound like an injustice to me!

Katri in France:

The series hasn't been very often on the air in France: it arrived on La 5, where it was broadcasted twice. Maybe it was also shown on TF1. Its latest broadcasts took place on July 97 and 99, in early 2000 and in 2001, but it was on a satellite channel (AB cartoon / Manga). The French version has no opening song, but just a 40 second long introduction piece of music.
The French audience hasn't quite appreciated the bucolic atmosphere of Katri, Girl of the Meadow, and I'm afraid we'll have to wait quite long before it is shown on an important channel again. :(

Katri in Germany:

The series has been broadcasted on two channels: RTL2 (lately on spring 2000 and September-October 2001) and TM3 (last time from January to March 98). Like Sara and Pollyanna, it has no opening song, but a little jingle of a few seconds.

Katri in Italy:

Opening date: March 23, 1998 - last update: December 2, 2001