I'm again going to bump this finely-aged thread to post my thoughts about Ai no Wakakusa Monogatari (the Little Women anime from 1987) now that I've finished watching it (very slowly over the course of like half a year). As one would expect from a 48 episode show based on a 150 year old book, it's pretty slow and maybe "quaint". Back in the 70's-80's shows like this were a lot more common, I think, because anime creators at the time would've grown up reading the foreign novel's they're based on. A few obvious examples: Anne of Green Gables, Dog of Flanders, Little Lord Fauntleroy (which appears as an ad at the end of this show). It's not surprising that today without much exposure to the source material or interest in shows longer than 13 episodes, that they're not so popular.
Relatedly, Little Women wasn't one of the books they made me read in school, so I knew very little about it when I watching this. If I ever read the OG novels, and the universe hasn't died from old age before I finish it, maybe I'll come back and do a proper comparison. One of the notable differences I can point to based on my shallow knowledge is about the Character Hannah. She's the maid crying in my video here
>>4267. In the OG novel, she's not black, Wikipedia says she's Irish, and most adaptations follow suit. I figure this would be a point of contention for some, but the story was always very much about the northern perspective during the Civil War, and the history of slavery was probably especially interesting to Japanese people.
Too, The Japanese perspective of American culture and history was a point of interest for me. They get so much right I kind of assume that the part which are "wrong" are intentional just to level with a comparatively disinterested audience For instance, the true Wapanese here will know that snowmen in Japan are typically built with 2 spheres (like this "8"), while in America they're built with 3. Sure enough in episode 23, Amy makes an American style snowman. Jo bowing like no American ever would (see image), is an opposite example that's really funny to me.