The manga was serialized in Kodansha's
Shōjo Friend magazine in Japan from 1975 to 1977. It remains a popular nostalgia item in Japan to this day, considered a classic work from the same 1970s
shōjo manga boom that gave birth to such popular titles as
Candy Candy, and copies are still in print. The anime adaptation of the story, which aired across Japan on the terrestrial TV Asahi network from June 1978 to March 1979, spanned 42 episodes, was directed by Kazuyoshi Yokota (
Spaceship Sagittarius, ''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics
, My Daddy-Long-Legs
), and featured character designs by future Ranma 1/2'' director Tsutomu Shibayama. Due to disappointing ratings, Nippon Animation was forced to end the series early and craft an ending to the anime that was different from that of the manga, cutting the story off after the arrival of Shinobu and Lalissa in Japan. In the final episode, Benio is told that the mysterious Russian count is
not Shinobu (Lalissa has a photograph of their wedding day to prove it). However, an epilogue narration reveals that Lalissa found Shinobu in Siberia. He was severely hurt, and was the spitting image of her late husband. The final episode concludes with Benio finally being reunited with Shinobu. Up until this point, the anime had been a very faithful adaptation of the manga, even incorporating redrawn stills from Yamato's original work (although the anime portrayed Benio with reddish-brown hair, and Yamato's colorized drawings often showed her as blonde). The anime has been discovered by new audiences in the years since thanks to the enduring popularity of the original manga (as well as a live-action movie version of the story released in Japan in 1987). In 2005,
Haikara-san ga Tooru was listed at #95 in a TV Asahi poll of the top 100 animation series of all time, based on a nationwide survey of Japanese of all age groups. The anime has also been aired across Japan by the anime
satellite television network,
Animax, and the
NHK satellite channel
BS2. Both the manga and anime have also enjoyed considerable success in the European market. The manga was released in Italy in the late 1990s under the title
Una ragazza alla moda (
A Fashionable Girl). The anime was successful on Italian TV in 1986 under the title
Mademoiselle Anne, and a French dub of the series,
Marc et Marie, aired on French TV in 1995. The anime has also been dubbed into Arabic, under the title
Beno (the Arabic name for Benio). Nippon Animation's official
English title for the anime is
Smart-san. Two-part anime film adaptations have been announced with the first film being released in Japan on November 11, 2017, while the
second film on October 19, 2018, covering the latter story of the original manga series, which was not told in the 42-episode anime television series in 1978–1979.
Eleven Arts has released the first film in theaters in the U.S. and Canada and on Blu-ray in partnership with
Right Stuf. The second film has also been licensed by Eleven Arts. ==1978–1979 anime television series==