Maya the Honey Bee

This article is about the anime series. For the novel, see Maya the Bee.

Maya the Honey Bee
File:DieBieneMajaIhreSchonstenAbenteuerBookCover.gif Die Biene Maja und ihre Abenteuer book cover.
Genre	Fantasy
Anime
Directed by	Hiroshi Saitô, Mitsuo Kaminashi and Seiji Endô
Studio	Nippon Animation
Anime
Directed by	Mitsuo Kaminashi
Studio	Nippon Animation

Maya the Bee (みつばちマーヤの冒険, Mitsubachi Māya no Boken, lit. The Adventures of Maya the Honeybee) is an anime television series produced by Nippon Animation Company in Japan. The series consisted of 55 episodes and was originally telecast across Japan from April 1975 to April 1976 on the TV Asahi network (formerly NET). Based on the classic children's book by Waldemar Bonsels, the anime series has been rebroadcast numerous times in various different countries and languages since its premiere.

An English-dubbed version of the series, produced by Saban Entertainment, was broadcast from 1990 to 1992 in the United States on the children's television channel Nickelodeon. Maya the Bee aired alongside other juvenile-targeted anime such as Adventures of the Little Koala, Noozles and The Littl' Bits as part of Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block of programming for very young children.

A second Maya the Bee anime, 新みつばちマーヤの冒険 Shin Mitsubachi Māya no Boken (The New Adventures of Maya the Honeybee), was made in 1979 by Nippon Animation with the animation studio Wako Production, using the same character designs and some of the same staff of the original series. The second series, which lasted for 52 episodes, did not premiere in Japan until October 1982, on TV Osaka, and aired through September 1983. Ten episodes from this series were added to the 55 episodes from the original for the U.S. broadcast run, bringing the total of Maya episodes aired on Nickelodeon in the U.S. to 65.

Story

The story centers on Maya, an inquisitive, adventurous and somewhat flighty young honeybee, and her adventures in the forest around her. Sent by the Queen Bee to gather pollen for her hive, Maya proves herself so good at it that she exhausts the entire pollen supply around the hive and is sent in search of more. Along the way, the good-natured young bee makes many new friends and has many adventures with other insects and other forest creatures.

Characters

• Maya (マーヤ, Māya) (Japanese VA: Michiko Nomura, English VA: Pauline Little)

The main character of the story, an inquisitive, adventurous and somewhat flighty young honeybee.

• Willi (ウイリー, Uirī) (Japanese VA: Masako Nozawa, English VA: Richard Dumont)

A boy honeybee (a new character in the anime not present in the original novel), who is lazier than Maya and also something of a coward but still has a good heart.

• Flip (or Phillip) (フィリップ, Firippu) (Japanese VA: Ichiro Nagai, English VA: A.J. Henderson)

A wise, top-hatted grasshopper.

• Miss Cassandra (カッサンドラ先生, Kassandora-sensei) (Japanese VA: Miyoko Asō, English VA: Jane Woods)

Maya's teacher (mostly in the first animated series).

International distribution

The series enjoyed great popularity in Spanish in Latin America as La Abeja Maya, in Portugal, as "Abelha Maia", in Italian as L'ape Maia and in Czechoslovakia as Včelka Mája (Czech) / Včielka Maja (Slovak). The series has also been released in Macedonian (Пчеличката Маја),Dutch (Maja de Bij), Finnish (Maija Mehiläinen), French (Maya l'Abeille), Polish (Pszczółka Maja), Bulgarian (Пчеличката Мая), Russian (Пчела Майя) and Arabic, among other languages.

Perhaps its greatest success has been in German-speaking territories; the German version, Die Biene Maja, has been a fixture on German television since its premiere in 1976. In Germany, Maya/Maja is among the five most recognized characters by children. A comic strip based on the TV series has been produced by the German editor Bastei Verlag and translated/published in many countries worldwide. It has been drawn alternately by the Studio Ortega (Barcelona) and the Atelier Roche (Munich), which also realized from 1976 amounts of illustrations for books and diverse merchandising items.

Trivia

• The theme song is sung by Karel Gott for German, Czech and Slovak version of the cartoon.

Staff

• Production: Zuiyo Eizo then Nippon Animation
• Series Directors: Hiroshi Saito, Mitsuo Kaminashi, Seiji Endo
• Script: Hikaru Sasa, Hitoshi Kanazawa
• Screenplay: Fumi Takahashi
• Character Designs: Susumu Shiraume
• Animation Directors: Susumu Shiraume, Takao Ogawa, Hayao Nobe
• Sound: Yasuhiro Koyama
• Theme Songs (performed by Cheetah and the Honeybee Choir, words and music by Seizo Ise):
  • OP - Mitsubachi Māya no Boken ("The Adventures of Maya the Honeybee")
  • ED - Oyasumi Māya ("Good Night, Maya")