Candy Candy

Candy Candy (キャンディ・キャンディ) is a Japanese novel, manga, and anime series. The main character, Candice "Candy" White Ardlay is a blonde American girl with freckles, large emerald green eyes and long, curly hair, worn in pigtails with bows. Candy Candy first appeared in a prose novel by famed Japanese writer Kyoko Mizuki in April 1975. When Mizuki joined forces with manga artist Yumiko Igarashi, the Japanese magazine Nakayoshi became interested in Candy Candy. The series was serialized as a manga series in the magazine for four years and won the 1st Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo in 1977. The story was adapted into an anime series by Toei animation. There are also several Candy Candy movies which were never released outside of Japan.

Alternative titles
Candy Candy is also known under different names in the following languages:
 * Candy (French)
 * Dolce Candy (Italian)
 * Las aventuras de Candy/Candy (Spanish/Latin America)
 * Кенди-Кенди (Russian)
 * キャンディ・キャンディ (Japanese)
 * Kendi- Kendi (Lithuanian)
 * Şeker Kız Candy (Turkish)

Plot Idea
The Candy Candy manga is a "slice of life story" in the Shōjo genre. While the protagonist experiences love in the series (and one significant love in the words of the author Keiko Nagita/Kyoko Mizuki in the essays found on Misaki's website "the great love that cannot bear fruit"), the recurring story arc in the series is Candy's love for Pony's Home, a place where she constantly returns to when life deals her great injustices or trials. It is here where the story begins, and the story ends.

Candy Candy: The Novel
Kyoko Mizuki's (the pen name of Keiko Nagita) Candy Candy novel, consisting of three volumes, has piqued the interest of the Candy Candy fans outside of Japan for some years. This novel was only available in Japan and published in Japanese.

Of particular interest is the 3rd volume, which covers the period after the events chronicled in the manga and anime. There is some work being done by Western fans to translate parts of the novel, but what little has been translated has confirmed that true to her artistic form, Kyoko Mizuki does not provide a concrete closure to the story. Yet, in the last letter that closes out the novel, Candy is still an optimistic, life-loving and cheerful heroine.

Manga serialization in Nakayoshi
Announcement of a new series appeared in the March 1975 issue of Nakayoshi. First chapter published in April 1975, and continued until the last chapter in March 1979. However, it did not appear in the following issues due to various reasons: November 1975, December 1976, January 1978 and June 1978.

Anime Cast

 * Minori Matsushima as Candice White Adley
 * Makio Inoue as William Albert Adley
 * Kazuhiko Inoue as Anthony Brown
 * Ryou Horikawa as Anthony Brown (1992 film)
 * Kei Tomiyama as Terrence Graham Grandchester
 * Kaneta Kimotsuki as Alistear Cornwell
 * Miyoko Aso as Mary Jane Headmistress
 * Yuji Mitsuya as Archibald Cornwell
 * Mami Koyama as Annie Brighten
 * Yumi Touma as Annie Brighten (1992 film)
 * Chiyoko Kawashima as Patricia O'Brien
 * Eken Mine as Garcia
 * Taeko Nakanishi as Annie Girard, Narrator
 * Yumi Nakatani as Eliza Leagan
 * Eiko Hisamura as Eliza Leagan (1992 film)
 * Kiyoshi Komiyama as Neil Leagan
 * Ryuusei Nakao as Neil Leagan (1992 film)
 * Koko Kagawa as Susanna Marlowe

Popularity
Candy Candy reached great heights of popularity for several years in a row, with different types of Candy Candy toys for sale in the Japanese market. These toys included dolls, girls' watches, and other items. In 1976 after the manga had become so popular among Japanese girls, a Japanese anime series was produced for NET (now known as TV Asahi). In 1978, one animated feature film about Candy Candy and her friends was released in Japanese cinemas. Another one would be released in 1992.

Candy Candy reached international fame throughout the early and mid-1980s among children in places such as Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Candy Candy toys were also sold in these areas. In Puerto Rico, where the show was known as just Candy, the series actually made a cross-over of sorts, because a large number of Puerto Rican and other Latin American boys also became fans of the show, even though the show was supposedly geared towards girls. Although Candy Candy was an animated program, it contained soap opera elements, and it had a continuous story (like many anime series), so every chapter began where the last chapter had left off.

During the 2000s, Candy Candy episodes began to be sold on bootleg DVD format, as the legal lawsuits between the authors halted any production of licensed goods.

Modern Candy Candy
In 2005, the Candy Candy franchise began to try to re-establish itself in the United States. Due to all the court cases that unfolded after Candy Candy became a television program, however, it is very unlikely that it will be shown on television again, as Nagita/Mizuki communicated on January 16, 2006 in an open letter to fans that the very thought of Candy Candy made her head hurt.

In 2005 and 2006, illegal/unlicensed Candy Candy Boxsets began to appear. The first being from France, included the French and Japanese Dialogue. Two Korean boxsets are now in print, they include the Japanese and Korean dialog, and Korean Subtitles. 20 Discs altogether were divided evenly into two boxsets and available from HanBooks and Sensasian.

Prior to the release, illegal/unlicensed Spanish DVD sets with poor audio and video were widely available on eBay.

On January 10, 2007, Chilean newspaper Las Últimas Noticias began issuing illegal/unlicensed DVDs of Candy Candy with its issues every Wednesday, with plans to continue to do so until all 115 episodes were released.

The 2007 French animation short film Candy Boy by director Pascal-Alex Vincent was inspired by Candy Candy.

In 2008, an illegal/unlicensed 115-episode DVD set was released in Taiwan. The illegal/unlicensed DVD set is issued in both Mandarin and Japanese with Chinese, English and Korean subtitles.