The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, El maravilloso viaje de Nils Holgersson, Le Merveilleux Voyage de Nils Holgersson à travers la Suède, A Maravilhosa Viagem de Nils Holgersson através da Suécia, 骑鹅历险记, Il viaggio meraviglioso di Nils Holgersson, Чудесное путешествие Нильса с дикими гусями, Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige, Чудното пътуване на Нилс Холгерсон през Швеция, Die wunderbare Reise des kleinen Nils Holgersson mit den Wildgänsen, Nils Holgerssoni imeline teekond läbi Rootsi, Nils Holgersson
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (ニルスのふしぎな旅 Nirusu no Fushigi na Tabi?) is an anime adaptation of the novel The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. The 52 episode series ran on the Japanese network NHK from January 1980 to March 1981. The series was the very first production by Studio Pierrot. The anime was mostly fairly true to the original, apart from the appearance of Nils' pet hamster, and the greater role allowed to the fox Smirre. The music was written by Czech composer Karel Svoboda.
Nils Holgersson is a 14 year old farm boy, the son of poor farmers. He is lazy and disrespectful to his fellowman. In his spare time he enjoys abusing the animals in his family farm. One day Nils captures a tomte in a net while his family is at church and have left him home to memorize chapters from the Bible. The tomte proposes to Nils that if Nils frees him, the tomte will give him a huge gold coin. Nils rejects the offer and the tomte turns Nils into a tomte, which leaves him shrunken and able to talk with animals, who are thrilled to see the boy reduced to their size and are angry and hungry for revenge. While this is happening, wild geese are flying over the farm on one of their migrations, and a white farm goose called Morten attempts to join the wild ones. Nils manages to flee on Morten's back together with his new hamster friend Carrot, and they join a flock of wild geese flying towards Lapland for summer.
The wild geese, who are not pleased at all to be joined by a boy and a domestic goose, eventually take him on an adventurous trip across all the historical provinces of Sweden, they encounter many adventures and characters like Smirre. Along the ride and at the same time the characters and situations Nils encounters make him learn to help other people and not be selfish. During the trip, Nils learns that if he proves he has changed for the better, the tomte might be disposed to change him back to his normal size.
(Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils")
