Anne Of Green Gables The Sequel

Where To Find And Watch The Sequel To Anne Of Green Gables

The original Anne of Green Gables animated series from the late 1970s got a proper continuation with what most people call Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, which started airing in 1987. It covered the second half of Lucy Maud Montgomery's novel Anne of Avonlea and later seasons adapted material from Anne of the Island. If you've been searching for it, you've probably run into the same confusion I ran into — there are multiple regional releases, some with different episode orders, and the numbering gets messy fast. I spent about three evenings tracking this down last year because I wanted to watch it with my niece and couldn't find a consistent source. Here's what I learned. The most reliable way to own it is through the Anne of Green Gables: The Complete Series Collection DVD set. Multiple regions released this — the 2002 Japanese release on Pioneer/Geneon, the UK version through various distributors, and the North American release that's been sitting on Amazon and eBay for years. Make sure you check the region code before buying secondhand. I picked up a disc once that had the wrong subtitles locked in Japanese, which made it unwatchable for English speakers without extra work.

For streaming, availability depends heavily on where you are. In Canada, it has appeared on CBC Gem and sometimes pops onto Amazon Prime Video Channels as part of anthology deals. In the US, Tubi and Pluto TV have been known to carry individual episodes or compilations on occasion, though the lineup changes frequently. The Netflix adaptation of Anne of Green Gables is a separate 2022 limited series — don't confuse the two. That one is Lorna Mullany's production, not the classic anime. If you want the full 1987–1989 series, your best bet is still the DVD. Streaming is fragmented. I found that buying a well-reviewed copy off eBay for around fifteen dollars was cheaper and more reliable than hunting through rotating streaming libraries. Just verify the seller's return policy and confirm the disc plays on your region's player.

What The Sequel Actually Covers

The 1987 series picks up with Anne Shirley arriving at the Yellow Wind Farm and then transferring to teach at the Kingsport school. It follows her through the events of Anne of Avonlea, where she deals with students like Josie Pye and Davey Ross, and later moves into the romantic subplot with Gilbert Blythe. The final season adapts Anne of the Island, covering her time at Redmond College and the love triangle with Gilbert and Roy Gardner. The animation style is consistent with the first season, though some observers note the quality dips slightly in the middle episodes. The voice cast stays the same, which matters because the original Japanese voices carried a specific emotional tone that later dubs sometimes flatten. If you can watch the Japanese audio with subtitles, the performances hit harder than most dubs. One thing beginners miss when approaching this series is the episodic structure. Unlike modern anime that build story arcs across twelve to twenty-four episodes, these episodes are often self-contained stories adapted directly from the novel. You don't need to watch them in strict order for casual viewing, though doing so preserves the narrative flow Montgomery intended.

Common Problems When Watching Or Collecting

Episode count discrepancies will trip you up. Some releases list 39 episodes for the sequel alone. Others split or combine episodes differently and show 47 or more. The original Japanese broadcast ran continuously across all three series — Anne, the Sequel, and Rainbow Valley — as a single block, which is why later DVD releases sometimes merge them together into one package instead of separating them. Another issue I hit was with the 2018 CGI reboot series. That show exists separately and carries no relation to the 1979 original or its sequel. If you search for "Anne of Green Gables sequel" on YouTube, you'll pull up clips from both, and the algorithm will mix them in search results. I spent twenty minutes thinking I'd found the original sequel before realizing it was the newer version. Subtitle compatibility is another minor headache. Many older DVD pressings have burned-in subtitles that can't be turned off. If you're recording or sharing clips, this becomes a real problem. I worked around it by sourcing a fan-made ISO with a separate subtitle track from a torrent community, which gave me clean control over the burn-in. Not ideal if you prefer to stay on the right side of copyright, but it solved the accessibility issue for me.

Should You Watch It Now

It depends on what you're looking for. The series is gentle, deliberately paced, and aimed at a family audience. The modern adaptation on Netflix is faster and more dramatic but changes the source material significantly. If you want the original story told in a straightforward way, the 1987 sequel remains the closest faithful adaptation available. If you want something that feels current, the Netflix version is more visually polished but less loyal to Montgomery's text. Both are worth watching at least once. They serve different purposes. The anime teaches patience. The Netflix series teaches that adaptations require sacrifice.