Set in pioneering Australia in the late 1830s, it tells the story of the Popples, a family who immigrate from Yorkshire, England to Adelaide, Australia with the dream of owning a farm. Amongst the Popples are Lucy-May, her older sister Kate, her other older sister Clara, her little brother Ben, her youngest brother Tob, her mother Ernie and their father Arthur. While Australia seems beautiful at first, they run into trouble - Arthur doesn't get the wealth he dreamed of and is deep into poverty, not being able to provide for his family. Lucy-May and Kate, however, love Australia - it's full of animals and lovely people, and they assimilate happily into their new home.
Unfortunately, the Popple's family troubles become more apparent as Arthur turns to alcohol to cope with his shitty life, their growing enemity with the wealthy Mr. Pettywell, and a tragic incident that befells Lucy-May. Can the family pull through it all? Will their dream of becoming rich and owning farmlands ever come true? And who is the mysterious couple that proclaim Lucy-May is their daughter?
The anime ran from January 10, 1982 to December 26, 1982, ending at 50 episodes. It was directed by Hiroshi Saito, while Ryuji Matsudo and Koichi Motohashi were credited as producers. Shuichi Seki provided the character designs.
Received the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Excellence in Children's TV Film Award in 1981.
In June 13, 2023, Teamkids (the channel that aired the French version) uploaded the full series in French on their YouTube channel. See here
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Though not big in Japan, it is widely beloved in Iran, to the point the theme song is well-know by older generations of Iranians.
Lucy-May of the Southern Rainbow has examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The book ends with the Popples unable to obtain the farmland, while the anime ends on a more joyful and prosperous note, with the Popples finally striking it rich after years of poverty thanks to Lucy-May's kindness and bravery.
- Adaptation Expansion: Many minor elements in the book (like Mr. Pettywell and his business dealings) are the subject of focus in the anime.
- Adapted Out: In the original novel, Lucy May had a little sister who was deceased. In the anime, both of her sisters are alive and there's no mention of a deceased sibling.
- The Alcoholic: The anime repeatedly portrays turning to alcohol as a coping mechanism with people for severe trauma, to the point it sometimes feels
Anvilicious. Then again, it's just following the book in this regard... - Alternative Foreign Theme Song: Here are the anime's Arabic and Kurdish openings.
- An Immigrant's Tale: The Popples immigrate to Australia with the hopes of making it big and owning a farm, but instead they end up living in poverty. Luckily, it's the kindess of their neighbours (and the kindness they give in return) that helps them stay afloat.
- Animals Respect Nature: Played straight with Snowflake the sheep and the other farm animals. Averted with Happy.
- Animated Adaptation: The anime is based on the novel Southern Rainbow by Phyllis Piddington.
- All Animals Are Dogs: With the way dingos are portrayed◊, you'd think they're cute little puppies. While Lucy May meets her fair share of scary ones, she manages to domesticate one as a pet.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The anime's Big Bad is Mr. Pettywell, a Rich Bitch who believes that if he throws enough money at a problem it'll go away, and hates the Popple family because of a land dispute.
- Artistic License – History: Clara states in the first episode that the year is 1837. In episode 33, Lucy-May mentions it's been three years since she came to Australia, meaning the year is 1841. In the next episode, while Arthur is working at a quarry, he hears an explosion, and his colleague tells him it is the sound of dynamite. But nitroglycerin, the raw material for dynamite, wasn't discovered until 1847.
- Australian Wildlife: Koalas (an animal unique to Australia) are featured prominently in the anime (and promotional material). Dingos are also prominently featured, and rightfully as dangerous.
- Bad People Abuse Animals:
- Whenever Mr. Pettywell is in a bad mood, he attacks his dog, Happy. In contrast Lucy May is an All-Loving Hero and her list of Animal Companions include her hamster from England, Mash, her goats Sticky, Pansy, and Soppy, her sheep Snowflake and her dingo Little. Not to mention her various ducks and chickens amongst other animals.
- What cements the rivarly between the Pettywells and the Popples is when Happy kills one of Sticky's newborn baby goats.
- The anime highlights many times that kindness to animals is an important virtue. For example, Cool Old Guy Larry is a shepherd, and even the mother of the Popples, who disagrees with keeping a dingo like Little as a pet, but grows to adore him. Characters that dislike animals (such as Lucy May's teacher, Mackenzie) are often portrayed unsympathetically.
- Britain Is Only England: The Popples originate from Yorkshire, England.
- Canon Immigrant: Mrs. Pettywell, Jones, Adam, George and a few minor characters.
- Chekhov's Gun: Chekhov's Dingo, in this case, as Little plays a role in helping Lucy May regain her memory.
- Coming of Age Story: It's about a seven-year-old girl coming to terms with a new life in a new country, and has to go through some heavy losses. It ends four and a half years later, when she's eleven.
- Creator Provincialism: The original book was written by Phyllis Piddington, an Australian woman who lived in Britain for some time, and is about a British family that immigrates to Australia. While Piddington wasn't involved in the production of the anime, many references to her Real Life can be seen in it.
- A Day in the Limelight: Many side characters get an episode or two focusing on their lives and how it intertwines with the Popples.
- Deadly Dingos: Lucy-May rescues an injured dingo and begs her father to keep it as a pet. He bluntly tells her that if it ever harms her or anyone, he will put it down. His fears are disproven when it grows up to be a friendly, helpful little thing who doesn't have an ounce of violence in his body.
- Despair Event Horizon: Many characters have one. For Arthur, it was three years of no success. For the Princetons it was losing Emily. For Bernard it was his illness. And so on.
- Down on the Farm: The Popples run a farm for a living, but after three years of failing to attain success, they have to turn to odd jobs to survive and Arthur becomes an alcoholic.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The Popples and Lucy risk never seeing each other again just so that they won't starve to death. To their shock, this pushes the domino effect of what ends with them being Wealthy Ever After.
- Edutainment Show: Many episodes go into detail about how maintaining a farm is like and have trivia about different types of animals.
- Family Theme Naming: We don't know what Mr. Jamling's first name is, but his wife is named Nelly and his son is named Billy.
- Gratuitous English: An odd example. While the anime is an adaptation of an English-language novel, it has some English in the dialogue.
- Grey And White Morality: Many characters are good people at heart, and even the the Princetons, who threaten to take Lucy May away from her family, have Hidden Hearts Of Gold, as in the end they're so touched by Lucy's love for her family they allow her to have the farmland free of charge.
- The Help Helping Themselves: Occurs due to Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal. Mr. Pettywell is a rich asshole who treats his help horribly, from berating them to threatening to freeze their pay over small things. As a result, one of his servants, Adam, conspires with a group of robbers to steal from him.
- High Koala-ty Cuteness: Lucy loves koalas. One of the anime's posters depicts her holding one◊.
- Historical Domain Character: Colonel William Light makes an appearance in this anime, and catches fish with Ben.
- Hope Spot: Arthur hoped to accumulate wealth by moving to Australia, but instead finds misery and gradually begins losing hope of a better future. Then his daughter goes missing and he goes from hopelessness to despair.
- Idyllic English Village: Inverted. The anime is about a family that immigrates from England to have this setting in Australia.
- Ill Girl: Bernard, Jane's brother, who's come to terms with the fact that he's going to die. He eventually passes away.
- Irony: When Arthur sold Snowflake, their sheep, for food, Lucy-May became extremely upset and cried. Luckily, she reunites with Snowflake when she works for the Princetons, and it turns out they're the ones who bought it.
- Land Down Under: The anime is about a British family that immigrate from Yorkshire to Adelaide, Australia, in the 1800s. They're quite shocked to find out how different life in Australia is rather than England, but enjoy it nonetheless.
- Kangaroos Represent Australia: Averted. Koalas and dingos are used to emphasize Australia's diverse wildlife. Though, kangaroos are seen in the first episode.
- The Migration: Many Englishfolk voluntarily move to Australia in hopes of finding a better life, namely the Popples, the Pettywells and Dr. Dayton. The Popples specifically land in Adelaide, Australia on November 7, 1837.
- Nouveau Riche: Discussed. This is Arthur's (and many of the other immigrants') dream, and they work endlessly to achieve it. However, only Pettywell is able to fulfill this trope, though at the end Lucy brings the Popples wealth accidentally.
- Parents as People: The anime stresses that parents aren't perfect and sometimes they do things that make their kids upset. Arthur may be an alcoholic who sells their farm animals to buy food, but he did out of wanting to provide for his family, and he's broken when Lucy May goes missing. Even the Princetons play this straight - they don't want to adopt Lucy May to hurt the Popples, they lost their daughter when she was two and see her in Lucy.
- Rainbow Motif: Whenever the Popples lose hope, they see rainbows, and when they finally earn their happy ending and become wealthy, they ride their ox-carts towards one.
- Right-Hand Cat: Or Dog in the form of Happy, a big black dog owned by Pettywell.
- Scenery Porn: Taking place in rural Adelaide, there are many shots of animals and pretty countryside farmland, with the occasional koala or dingo.
- Shown Their Work: The novel the anime was based on was written by an Australian woman, and everything depicted is based on her own experiences, from the architecture to the countryside to other details.
- Shout-Out:
- Slice of Life: Many episodes are about Lucy May getting to know more about her neighbours, - the kind baker Jane, the friendly carpenter Jamling, and the old shepherd Larry. Some episodes focus on their families and what brought them to Australia too.
- The Song Remains the Same: The German dub (called Lucy in Australienen) leaves the opening theme song in Japanese.
- Sweet Baker: Jane Mack, who owns a bakery and is Clara's Benevolent Boss.
