Meiken Lassie: Yume ni Mukatte Hashire!

Meiken Lassie: Yume ni Mukatte Hashire! was produced by Nippon Animation in 1997 as an original video animation (OVA). It serves as a narrative companion to the 1996 World Masterpiece Theater television series Meiken Lassie, which adapted Eric Knight’s classic novel Lassie Come-Home. The production was part of a long-standing tradition at Nippon Animation, where the studio sought to bring classic international literature to a Japanese audience through high-quality cel animation, emphasizing emotional storytelling and pastoral settings.

The character designs and animation direction were aimed at maintaining the gentle, wholesome aesthetic characteristic of the World Masterpiece Theater brand. By the late 1990s, the studio was exploring direct-to-video formats to extend the reach of their television properties. While the television series was noted for its departure from traditional source material pacing, this OVA provided a standalone narrative experience that leaned into the established characterizations, reflecting the studio's commitment to maintaining a consistent visual identity across different distribution formats.