World Masterpiece Theater (Johnsonverse)

World Masterpiece Theater is an American TV Anime staple that showcases an animated version of a different classical book or story each year on 7:30 p.m. on Sunday. It has aired since 1969.

The first several series were produced by Mushi Production and then by Zuiyo Eizo, and then by Zuiyo's successor Nippon Animation, which was officially established in June 1975 during the run of A Dog of Flanders. In both cases, the series originally aired primarily on Fuji Television. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata both worked on several of the series. World Masterpiece Theater as produced by Nippon Animation lasted for 23 seasons, from A Dog of Flanders in 1975 to Remi: Nobody's Girl in 1997. Nippon Animation restarted the series in 2007 with the release of Les Misérables, which premiered on BS Fuji on January 7, 2007, with The Long Journey of Porphy subsequently airing on the same network beginning on January 6, 2008, making it the 25th World Masterpiece Theater series.

The series moved to Johnson in 2014, with a remake of Les Misérables incorporating music from the popular stage musical.

Les Misérables (2014)
The Johnson remake of Les Misérables premiered on January 5, 2014 on WBC. The remake is similar to the original Nippon version, but with elements from other adaptations, namely the characters singing songs from the stage musical. The series had the novel idea of using three separate actors for Jean Valjean and Javert at different ages. Other changes included the deaths of Gavroche and Javert being restored, Madame Thenardier living as in the musical, and the ending in Heaven.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (2015)
The second Johnson-made series premiered on January 4, 2015. Like the previous series, it is a musical, incorporating songs from the Disney animated film and subseqent stage adaptation.

War of the Worlds (2016)
The third Johnson-made series premiered on January 3, 2016. This new adaptation of the classic novel takes place in modern-day Tokyo, and follows a pair of high school students trying to survive the Martian invasion. In true Johnson fashion, the series combines animation with live-action puppetry and models, and incorporates Jeff Wayne's music during key moments (the tripod design from the Jeff Wayne version were also used), plus the narration of the late Richard Burton (edited to remove any and all references to London). The ending is also expanded: after the invaders succumb to Earth diseases, the Martian High Command deploys their weapon of last-resort, said to be the weapon that destroyed the Venusians millions of years ago. Said weapon turns out to be King Ghidorah, who attacks all over the world before being confronted and killed by Godzilla (portrayed using the MireGoji suit).

Other differences include the Thunder Child being a guided missile frigate (though the narration still refers to it as an ironclad), the Martians being made to fight for every inch of land and their occupation prior to being killed by the bacteria being a living hell (Timothy Hill said in an interview that the entire series was an allegory for Western intervention in the Middle East, with the Martians as the United States military and humanity as the various terrorist groups), and overall, the Martians are depicted as more pitiable than menacing due to the fact they invaded Earth not out of malice, but desperation due to Mars having been decimated in an interplanetary nuclear war with Venus millions of years ago, a war in which one of the larger missiles accidentily hit Earth and killed the dinosaurs; the Martians simply wanted Earth as a new home, and the Martian government was ready to make diplomatic overtures, but the Martian High Command carried out a coup, fearing that the language barrier would start a war, so they preemptively struck, hoping to force a peace settlement before more radical elements in the Martian military disobeyed orders and began killing every human in sight, and then capturing and processing them for food. WORK-IN-PROGRESS