Nathalie

So there you are, an ambitious evangelical Christian, that wants to preach the Word to the youth. What do you do? You could create an animated series. That is difficult though, because you must first learn to understand the idiom and the technique, which doesn't always work out that well. But what other options are there? Well why not just buy the rights to some cheap Japanese cartoon series and dub it over in the native language of your country cramming it full of Jesus? That is what the local Evangelical Broadcasting Network here seems to have done with the Japanese series Katri, Girl of the Meadows, that they renamed Nathalie. This story is strange anyway and somehow very modern and international. The 1980s series is Japanese and based on a Finnish book set in Finland during the First World War. So already the series is culturally somewhat of a stretch. But then the Evangelical Broadcasting Network here in the Netherlands bought up the rights and made it into a Dutch series with a strong Christian message. This is not on a Golden Rule do-unto-others level, Jesus was invoked himself. It was quite explicit. I am amazed now (although perhaps a bit naively) that the series wasn't evangelical at all to begin with. In a way, just buying some secular series and then dubbing it into sanctity is quite cunning. If you can't beat them, rob them blind?

 Katri, a.k.a. Nathalie.

Dutch DVD front.

Dutch intro song.