Candy Candy

***Candy Candy*** is a Japanese series created by Kyoko Mizuki. The main character, Candice "Candy" White Ardley is a blonde girl with freckles, large emerald green eyes and long hair, worn in pigtails with bows. *Candy Candy* first appeared in a prose novel by famed Japanese writer Keiko Nagita under the pen name Kyoko Mizuki in April 1975. When Mizuki joined forces with manga artist Yumiko Igarashi, the Japanese magazine *Nakayoshi* became interested in *Candy Candy*. The series was serialized as a manga series in the magazine for four years and won the 1st Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo in 1977. The story was adapted into an anime series by Toei Animation. There are also four animated short films.

## Plot

The *Candy Candy* manga provides a story in the shōjo genre. Candy, an abandoned orphan taken in by the orphanage Pony's Home near Lake Michigan around the start of the 20th century, spent the first years of her life at the orphanage, to where she would often return to repose and to decide her next course in life. When Annie, her best friend at the orphanage, was adopted, she ran outside crying, and met briefly a boy who told her not to cry. Candy retained fond memories of the boy and, not knowing his name, remembered him as the "Prince on the Hill". The boy will have great influence and importance in her life later on.

When she turned 12, Candy was taken in by the Leagan family as a companion for their daughter Eliza and her brother Neil. The Leagans treated her poorly and eventually made Candy a servant girl. When the Leagan family accused Candy of stealing and sent her off to work in their family farm in Mexico, Candy was rescued from being sent to Mexico by William Adley, the sole heir of the very wealthy Adley family and the owner of the Adley estate. William Adley became Candy's adoptive father, but his true identity remained a mystery and she would not meet him until the end of the story. He was also the uncle of Candy's first love, Anthony Brown, and a relative of Anthony's cousins, the Cornwell brothers Archibald (Archie) and Alistair (Stear), as well as the Leagan children.

Later on, Anthony died in a hunting accident when he was thrown off the horseback. Thereafter, Candy, along with Archie and Stear, and the Leagan children, were sent to London to attend the prestigious St. Paul's College, a secondary school, where she met the rebellious bad boy Terrance (Terrius/Terry) Grandchester, the illegitimate child of a British Duke with American Broadway actress Eleanor Baker. Candy once saw him crying on the same boat she was taking to London from America. Terry was her second and grand love (in the words of the author Keiko Nagita/Kyoko Mizuki in the essays found on Misaki's website, "the great love that cannot bear fruit". Circumstances divided the pair when Eliza Leagan schemed to have Candy expelled from St. Paul's by manipulating them into a scandal.

After the scandal, Terry left St. Paul's to protect Candy's reputation, but Candy also decided to leave. They would both embark on their individual life journeys forward in the United States, where Candy trained to become a nurse in Chicago around the time of World War I, and Terry pursued a career as a rising star actor on Broadway in New York. An actress in his theater troupe, Susanna, became attracted to Terry and believed she loved him. During a rehearsal session, an accident occurred and Susanna saved Terry's life, but in the process became disabled. Her injury destroyed her acting career. Her mother demanded that Terry takes care of her for the rest of her life. Susanna herself became depressed and attempted suicide, knowing that Terry loved Candy and did not love her. Feeling responsible, Terry was torn between reuniting with Candy and his duty to care for Susanna. When Candy discovered what happened, she decided to sacrifice her own happiness and left Terry, so Terry could remain with Susanna, even though Terry did not love Susanna and was deeply in love with Candy.

Afterwards, Candy returned to Chicago to continue her life. By chance, she became the nurse and caretaker to Albert, who lost his memories after a World War I related bomb explosion on a train in Italy. Albert ultimately regained his memories and revealed his true identity to Candy. At the end of the story, Candy discovered that he was the Prince on the Hill. In Italy, however, the anime's ending was changed, and Candy and Terry meet again at a train station deciding to stay together.

In 2010 the novel "Candy Candy The Final Story" written by Mizuki using her real name Keiko Nagita, Candy discovers that Suzanne died when reading about it in the newspaper. At an undefined time, Candy receives a note signed with the initials "T.G.". Albeit never confirmed in the text itself, these initials are allegedly ascribed to the stage actor, Terry Graham. He no longer uses his father's surname "Granchester" as he had renounced it upon his departure from the UK several years ago. The note itself is obscure and thus open to a multitude of interpretations. The novel ends with Candy in her mid-30s living with the man she loves during the Interbellum. The identity of this man is never revealed in the text and there is no evidence indicating who this character is. In addition, there is no indication whether Candy is married or not, employed or has children of her own. All the reader knows is that she is happy to be with the man she loves-whoever he may be.

There were some plot and character differences between the manga and the anime:[*citation needed*] Candy's age was different for several events when she grew up at Pony's Home. In the manga, she was six or seven years old when she met her Prince of the Hill, but was ten in the anime. Her sidekick pet raccoon Kurin/Clint belonged solely to the anime version.

## Novel

Kyoko Mizuki's (the pen name of Keiko Nagita) *Candy Candy* novel, consisting of three volumes, has piqued the interest of *Candy Candy* fans outside Japan for some years. This novel was only available in Japan and published in Japanese.

Of particular interest is the 3rd volume, which covers the period after the events chronicled in the manga and anime. The novels have been translated in their entirety by Western fans but the translations confirmed that, true to her artistic form, Kyoko Mizuki did not provide concrete closure to the story. Yet, in the last letter that closed out the novel, Candy was still an optimistic, life-loving and cheerful heroine.

In 2010, Kyoko Mizuki, under her real name Keiko Nagita, revised and published the "*Candy Candy Final Story*" (CCFS). CCFS was published in two volumes and not three volumes as the earlier novels. She announced that this was her effort to tell the story as she always intended from the beginning, without the influence of the manga illustrator or the manga production team. Most of the plot of the story remained the same. Changes were made mainly to details of descriptions to scenes. Mizuki also replaced the children hiragana form writing of the earlier novels with more mature kanji form of the writing, and made the style of CCFS more poetic. She did, however, add a few major new developments to CCFS. In CCFS, Susanna had died from a chronic illness years after Candy and Terry had separated. It is not said in the CCFS whether Candy responded to a note she had received which had been signed with the initials "T.G.". It is alleged that this note may belong to Terry Graham but that is never confirmed in the text nor is it specified whether Candy responded to that letter or not. Then the novel proceeds with the final section known as the "Epilogue" where a series of letters are exchanged between Candy and Albert. Candy includes a recollection of her (unsent) letter to Anthony where she reflects upon her life thus far.[*citation needed*] Keiko Nagita also added a final scene where Candy, in her thirties and living in an unknown place near a river called Avon, greets her beloved as he enters their home. The man's name is never revealed, but Nagita said that she was satisfied knowing that Candy now lived a happy life with that mystery man.

In 2015, the Italian publisher Kappalab obtained the copyright to publish CCFS in its entirety in Italian. The first volume was published in early 2015. The second volume was released in summer 2015.