Orphan is redoing as many of the stories from the 1986 anthology series *Seishun Anime Zenshuu* (translated as *Animated Classics of Japanese Literature* for its English release) as we can find sources for, starting with the twelve episodes released in North America on DVD. We’ll be releasing the show as individual stories; today's is *The Dancing Girl*, based on a short story by Ougai Mori published in 1890. It's thematically related to *The Izu Dancer* and *The Sound of Waves*. All three are variations on the endless dance of longing and love, this time with tragic results. The team will circle back to the third story, *Botchan*, next year. *The Dancing Girl* is set in 1880s Germany. Its story is simple: a young Japanese exchange student meets an impoverished German dancing girl, falls in love with her, gets her pregnant, and then, despite his protestations of love, abandons her to return home and pursue his career. %20%5BBD7CD78B%5D_001_11770.png) Thematically, it feels similar to the later *Madame Butterfly*. New encode from the R1 DVD. Translation checked script, with fixed timing and new typesetting. See [this blog entry](https://collectr.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-dancing-girl.html) for more details.