Anime / Moomin (1990)

Here they are for one and all, the Moomins are about to call
Come and sit down here with me, they're here for you on your TV

Pa-papapa, papa-pa-papa...

Moomin, sometimes referred to as Adventures from Moominvalley and known in Japanese as Tanoshii Mūmin Ikka (Delightful Moomin Family) is the second anime adaptation of The Moomins after the 1969/1972 adaptations, and arguably the most internationally well-known version of the series. It aired in 1990 and ran for one season of 78 episodes, and like the earlier anime, resulted in a sequel series titled 'Bouken Nikki/Adventure Diary', which ran for 26.

The show was a huge success, being dubbed in to at least 20 different languages, and frequently repeated far into the early '00s in a number of countries. Interestingly, the show never made it to the States, only broadcasting in the region of Hawaii.

The existence of this series helped create the second "Moomin Boom" through the '90s, after its initial surge of popularity in the '50s. It spawned one film, an adaptation of Comet in Moominland, and multiple video game releases based on the continuity of the show.

As of 2020, all episodes of the first series are available to watch on the official Moomin youtube channel.

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Tropes specific to the '90s anime:

• Accent Adaptation: In the Swedish dub, almost every character speaks in a Finnswedish dialect.
• Adaptational Name Change: In the Japanese version, Snorkmaiden is once again given a different name; this time it's Floren.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, Stinky is just a petty criminal who gets along with the Moomins. Here, he's the show's closest thing to a recurring antagonist, but more of the jerk variety.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song:
  • The Swedish opening song is much different from the Japanese opening song.
  • When the show aired in Hawaii, its opening and ending songs were redone in a Hawaiian style by Robi Kahakalau, with part of the lyrics translated into Hawaiian.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: The late 90s dub for the former Yugoslav countries, which was done in Bosnia and Herzegovina under Finnish supervision, slightly altered the name of the species to "Mumies" (Mumijevi) to avoid running afoul of somebody confusing "Mumini" for "muslimani"invoked, which was the former ethnic name of what's now mostly considered to be the Bosniaks. Given what happened there this is no surprise.
• Book Ends: The first season both begins and ends with Moomins hibernating in the winter.
• Bowdlerise:
  • Poland cut some scenes in Bouken Nikki:
    • In episode 80, Sniff falls in love with a girl who loves flowers very much, so he gives her a bouquet. However, she slaps him in the face and calls him out because she believes he killed the flowers; the slap was cut.
    • In episode 84, Little My was saved by the Groke from the burning forest and then is found by the Moomins, Sniff, Snork Maiden and Snufkin. After she tells them about the rescue, the screen pans up and Groke's voice can be heard; this was also removed.
  • In the original Japanese dub when the Groke first appears, Moominpappa threatens to shoot her if she won't leave, and Moomintroll and Moominmamma say that they will hit her head. Other dubs changed this to them saying that she is upsetting Thingumy and Bob and freezing Moominmamma's roses.
  • The original version of the episode "The Pirates" contains a close-up of Little My biting the pirate's hand after he kidnaps Snorkmaiden. For some reason, every other dub cuts this scene.
  • In the French dub, episodes 6,7 and 22, the Groke has a bizarre, growling voice. In episode 37 it was changed to a much milder one.
    • Similarly, in the Norwegian version, after "Tiny Guests" made parents call in to NRK, its broadcaster, complaining about the Groke being too scary, her voice actress was changed from Velte Bækkehund to Runar H. Huse, who gave her an moreso goofy voice (as heard in the winter episodes and on).
  • In the original Japanese version of the episode 17, when Stinky is caught in Moominpappa's trap prepared for a monster (that was actually made up by Stinky), there is a scene where Moominpappa aims his gun at Stinky, believing him to be the monster. Other dubs have this scene altered so he isn't pointing the gun at him anymore; however in the Finnish version you can still hear the sound of Moominpappa preparing his gun.
  • In the original version of "The Invisible Friend" (as well as the story it's based on), Little My says that she hopes Too-ticky gave Ninny's horrible aunt a good beating. The English dub changes this to "I hope you told her she hurt Ninny's feelings!"
  • "The Day the Lighthouse Lit Up"; the Finnish and the English dub removed the Moomins speculating that the lighthouse keeper was driven to suicide due being so lonely, changing it into more lighthearted conversation. The scene still kept the dark theme music.
• Canon Foreigner: The series added two recurring characters, The Witch and her granddaughter, Alicia, who do not appear in any of the other versions.
• Coconut Meets Cranium: In the episode where the jungle grows around the Moominhouse, a falling coconut hits the head of Moominpappa who's wearing a sun helmet. He just stands dazed for five seconds before happily commenting how useful the helmet is.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Moomins are stated to be only white, though this version gives Moomin, Moominmamma, and Moominpappa light blue, cream, and periwinkle shades respectively to better tell them apart.
• Composite Character: Toft, who takes his name from one of the protagonists of Moominvalley in November, but has more in common with the Red-Haired Boy in the Lighthouse from The Great Flood.
• Cool Airship: Exclusive to this adaptation, there's a plotline spanning multiple episodes about Snork building a flying ship, which looks like a large boat with wings and and multiple helicopter-like rotors. Most residents of Moominvalley (especially Moomintroll) are amazed at the thought of a ship flying through the air, but unfortunately, it's never properly used as it consumes too much fuel and was destroyed in "The Big Explosion" before this problem could be solved. Snork then gets right back to work building a new model, this one resembling a hot air balloon with propellers, and while it's much smaller, it's also more practical and is successfully flown in the Season 1 finale.
• Double-Meaning Title: Episode 29, "The Lost Children" (based on Moominsummer Madness), has a title that can refer to either Moomin, Snorkmaiden, and Little My being lost at sea when the floating theater drifts away and Little My falls into the water, Snufkin adopting a band of orphans at the park, or the name of the play written by Moominpappa.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
  • Episode 73 of Polish dub, with Moomintroll seeing hattifatteners and saying something like "Look at those weird creatures!", even though they have already met hattifatteners on multiple occasions before.
  • Anytime Moomins mention Christmas despite not knowing what it is until the episode "Christmas Is Coming".
• Exact Words: In "The Spell", in order to convince the Witch to lift the sleeping spell she cast on the Moomin family, Alicia promises to never go to Moominvalley again. At the end of the episode, Moomin and his friends come to visit her; after all, the promise was that Alicia couldn't go visit them in Moominvalley, not that the Moomins can't travel to the forest to see her.
• Flower from the Mountaintop: In "The Great Race", the Witch and Mr. Brisk compete to see if her broom or his hot-air balloon flies better by having a race to the top of Lonely Mountains to pick up a starshaped white flower that grows only there. The Witch wins the race and gives the flower for Mr. Hemulen to plant in his garden.
• Forced Sleep: At the end of "Midwinter Bonfire" and the start of the next episode, "The Spell", the Witch casts a sleeping spell on the Moomins (and Snorkmaiden) while they hibernate, in order to stop Alicia from going to see them. While the spell doesn't appear to make them fall asleep, as it's cast while they're already sleeping, it makes it impossible for them to wake up unless the counterspell is used.
• The Great Serpent: One of the zoo animals from the jungle episodes is a giant python.
• Interactive Narrator: At the end of "The Treasure Hunt", the narrator comments that Mr. Hemulen's new garden is going to be excellent and asks him if that's right. He immediately agrees.
• Jackass Genie: In "The Spirit in the Lamp", the titular spirit claims to make wishes come true, but only does so by stealing. When Snorkmaiden asks for a pearl necklace, he steals one from the Fillyjonk, and when he reads Moomin's mind and learns that he's worried about Moominpappa's play not being good enough, he rewrites it for him, but plagiarizes Romeo and Juliet in the process. In the end, the residents of Moominvalley are so fed up with him that they ask the Hobgoblin to take it into space
• Jerkass: Stinky as part of his Adaptational Villainy, but the plan (almost) always backfires. Let's recap:
  • Abandoned and trapped Ninny in order to make her invisible again and force her into participating in a robbery. She's rescued by Moomin and his friends.
  • Stole Moomin's mechanical wings but did not know how to operate them and was blown to sea.
  • Tricked the Fillyjonk's children into almost swinging off a cliff.
  • Released animals from the zoo into the Moomins' homegrown jungle, then tried to make the snake eat Moomin and Snorkmaiden, though the Moomins ended up befriending the animals.
• Jerkass Ball:
  • "The Terrible Little My" is about Little My's behavior getting even worse than usual. She steals Snork's basket, knocks down Fillyjonk's laundry (and leaves Moomintroll to wash it again), then scares Moomintroll, causing him to hurt his leg. She refuses to apologize for any of this.
  • "Hurry Up Snufkin" has Snork constantly belittling Snorkmaiden when she wants to go look out for Snufkin. Heck, he even points out that men don't miss their friends.
• Last-Second Photo Failure: The Moomins' attempt to take a family photo in "Artists in Moominvalley" goes wrong when almost everyone flinches at the blinding flash that makes them all look white in the photo. What's more, this picture ends up with Moominpappa's other photos to a landscape photographic contest, and he wins the first prize due to the photo being mistaken for a "surrealistic view of some weird white rocks". He's left embarrassed by this, especially when several artists want to paint these rocks for the following landscape painting contest.
• Lighter and Softer: The series does contain some notoriously scary scenes, but is overall gentler than the books, removing the conflict and allegorical issues of war, parental death, etc. in favour of a more child-friendly slice-of-life show. It's especially apparent in the episodes adapting Moominpappa at Sea, which the anime turned into another fun family adventure, whereas the entire point of the book was that it wasn't another fun family adventure, but Moominpappa dealing with a midlife crisis and the family becoming miserable. They also softened the character of the fisherman, and added Toft (from Moominvalley in November, which wasn't adapted) as a kid sidekick to make him more likeable.
• Music Soothes the Savage Beast: The carnivorous plants from the jungle episodes stop attacking and dance when Snufkin plays his harmonica. They remain harmless only for as long as he plays, though, so he has to lure them with his music to the cellar where they're locked up.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: In "The Big Explosion", the Muffle and Stinky are blown away when the Muffle's fuel overloads the engines on Snork's flying ship. Although the blast completely destroyed Snork's hangar and launched them dozens of feet into the air, the two are shown to be totally unharmed the next day, other than the Muffle's clothes looking a bit tattered.
• Not Me This Time: Stinky is often a huge Jerkass who causes no end of trouble to the residents of Moominvalley. But in Episode 24, he genuinely didn't do anything wrong: Moomin wants to go look for Snufkin despite being too sick to leave, and Stinky only decides to come along to make sure he stays safe. Along the way, the two encounter Snorkmaiden, who disobeyed Snork to go looking for Snufkin as well. Then Moominpappa and Snork catch up to them, and they both immediately assume that Stinky manipulated them into going.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The English dub was British made, though with the actors doing their best to put on Southern American accents. A fair few lines or syllables have their original accents seep in.
• Playing Sick: In "The Terrible Little My", Moomin hurts his leg when Little My scares him. Although he feels much better the next day, he pretends that he's still unable to walk, both because he enjoys the attention and because he wants to guilt-trip Little My into apologizing to him. He then finds that he's unable to sleep, because he has too much energy to burn after sitting down all day, so he sneaks out in the middle of the night to run around and see Snufkin.
• Rearrange the Song: The Hawaiian broadcast has versions of the English opening and closing themes (the originals being based on the Finnish/Swedish theme) in the style of contemporary Hawaiian music. Some verses are even in Hawaiian.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: In "The Imp", the children come upon a dead tree which has a demon (though he's called an imp in the English dub) contained within. After he promises to grant them wishes to prove he's turned for the better, they place a straw in the trunk against Moomin's warnings, allowing the demon to get out through it in a smoky form. He then admits he has remained evil and intends to turn the children into animals before Snufkin tricks him into returning inside the tree and removes the straw. The tree is then taken to drift in the sea.
• She's a Man in Japan: The gender of the giant python from the jungle episodes varies depending on the dub. For example. it's male in Japanese and Swedish, female in Finnish and English.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Subverted with the giant python who gladly agrees to attack Moomin and Snorkmaiden on the prodding of Stinky who wants their tails to be bitten off at minimum. However, when the zoo staff shows up, the snake reveals s(he) has no intention of eating Moomin and Snirkmaiden, helps them escape from the zoo staff, and befriends the rest of the Moomin family.
• Suicide by Sea: Subverted when Sniff gets heartbroken and the rest of the gang rushes to prevent him from what looks like trying to throw himself in the sea. It turns out he just wanted to wash his face to get over the heartache.
• Time Machine: In the second season, Moominpappa accidentally manages of build this while trying to fix Moominmamma's sewing machine and Moomin's clock, only to end up combining them. The Moomins use it to adventure in various places around the world, such as the Ancient Egypt and The Wild West.
• Tricking the Shapeshifter: The demon trapped inside a dead tree in "The Imp" is able to get out by turning to smoke and exiting through the straw the children place in a crack in the trunk. After Snufkin sees this happen, he pretends to believe the demon is a magician since he's too big to be able to fit in the straw and must have come from behind the tree. Offended, the demon decides to prove he's genuine by returning back inside the tree in his smoky form, after which Snufkin removes the straw and leaves him trapped.
• Tummy Cushion: After Moomin kicks some of Little My's siblings out of his bed, Little My crawls on his tummy. After telling him that she too wants some peace and quiet from her rambunctious siblings, they both fall asleep.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Snufkin and Little My aren't said to be siblings. In fact, in one episode, the latter says that she wants to date the former.
• Walk on Water: Alicia learns a spell that allows her to do this in "Witch Walking". Wanting to prove that science is superior to witchcraft, Snork crafts a pair of floating shoes, but Little My is the only one who's able to use them without losing her balance.

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They love the laughter and they love the living, the Moomins...

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