Fukuyama Gekijou: Natsu no Himitsu

In short: a charming assortment of kid-friendly stories, endearing designs (I love Fukuyama Keiko's character designs!), a sense of wonder and joie de vivre... and some silly songs that might drive adults batty if played too many times, but overall, a varied and lovely collection.
My full review:
I found a new (to me–it’s actually quite old!) heartwarming collection of cute, collection of fables/fairy tale-esque children’s stories anime, Fukuyama Gekijou: Natsu no Himitsu [Fukuyama Theater: Summer Secret]–I found it via Pinterest because of an adorably sweet mermaid design!!! Creative, with finned arms and a dress-like tail, pretty, but not sexualized...

It’s by one of my favourite artists ever, ... Fukuyama Keiko, who painted those touching scenes used for the end of Pikachu’s Summer Vacation (yup, the first Pikachu pre-movie short!) and a lot of old Pokemon postcards! Osamu Tezuka fans will also know her as the artist of the Melmo-chan reboot manga!

It’s where this one screencap popular around social media sites like tumblr of a cartoony bunny lying in grass, cupping its cheeks, comes from... I used to mistake it as something from Chibi Maruko-chan! It used to make the rounds on tumblr a lot. The intro/narrative frame of little mice reading stories gives me the same so-heartwarming-it-makes-me-teary nostalgic feeling as Maple Town. (Side-note: so many punny references to Fukuyama-sensei’s name everywhere!)

The rabbits’ story is just bunny propoganda, poor wolf!! He’s as pitiful as Tom from Tom & Jerry! But I am very amused at the catchy song just trying to get kids to eat the veggies. See, the wolf is ugly because he hated carrots, but the bunnies are smart, because they love carrots, fff.

The longest story is a silly, Flintstones-esque story about cavemen living among dinosaurs, namely focusing on an aspiring artist (Henoheno), trying hard to make it big, supported by his friend (later wife ♡) Pink and dinosaur friend Shiro (Shiro also ends up a mom to many, many little dinos, but the father amusingly isn’t shown, Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Short, pfft.) Also, there’s a famous established artist called (Moheji.) Yes, his and the lead’s names are puns on the henohenomoheji doodle. As you can tell by the disclaimer, you are not to take this anachronistic story too seriously, it's pure fiction with little in common with reality, it’s just a sweet, funny, uplifting little story!

This little punk in the End of Semester Cleaning Contest story is very funny. Cute story. I did worry it’d take a dark turn when he fell down the stairs (they even had him wonder if maybe he died whe he fell), but no, it ended nicely… even if it’s a little bittersweet.

There’s some shorter stories that are mostly songs (another one about rabbits sung by a kindergartener and one song about yearning for love starring a little black dog named Kuro who does find a home!), and the last story is easily my other favourite after the mermaid story, and I’m so glad it was a longer one too… it’s a very poignant story.

The Origami Princess is a little like Thumbelina, but very Japanese. A little girl, with her mother’s help, makes an origami princess, but before she could go to the beach, she falls sick, so sends the princess in her place, floating her on a boat-shaped leaf down the river…

The princess is amazed by the beauty of the world and befriends a telescope goldfish (Kinguro), who was accidentally flushed while his tank was being cleaned, and he aids her as she seeks the sea, even as he warns her of the danger…

There’s a dignity and grace in accepting the transient nature of life in this story that’s very beautiful.