'The Old Woman in the Woods' as a story should be better known, it is as good as Brothers Grimm's most famous stories, yet it landed in my "not familiar with it for a long time" category when it comes to their work. Since familiarising with it in the past five years or so, 'The Old Woman in the Woods' became one of my favourites of theirs and if anybody doesn't know it yet they should definitely find some way of reading it.
'Grimm Masterpiece Theater' is an intriguing and mostly very nicely done late 80s anime series, though the music and voice acting varied, that is a great opportunity to fall in love with the famous stories and get acquainted with new discoveries. There are some great episodes in the series, for me its version of 'The Old Woman in the Woods' is one of them and one of my favourite 'Grimm Masterpiece Theater' episodes. There are changes from the original story, so the original story is the real deal but this is a good way of getting acquainted with it.
As said, the music was always variable on 'Grimm Masterpiece Theater'. While there are worse cases here, didn't find myself completely crazy about it here, it is not particularly memorable and didn't seem to fit.
Did find that the romantic element later on was a little on the rushed and forced side, but that was most likely down to fitting a lot of story into a short period of time.
On the other hand, 'The Old Woman in the Woods' has some of the better voice acting of the series, the narrator as always stands out, so thoughtful and guides one along gracefully without giving too much of the story. Have always been mixed on the voice acting of the female protagonists, there were definitely hits though and Lizbeth is one of the best examples of the hits. She is perky and with a nice variety of expression, sounding mature without going too far that way. The owl and witch are well voiced too. Lizbeth is one of the series' most likeable heroines and easy to endear to, the owl prince likewise. The witch is creepy without being traumatising.
It's one of the series' better looking episodes, it's colourful and atmospheric and with well designed backgrounds plus suitably dark when the story becomes darker. The theme songs still charm, as does the intro. The writing is neither simplistic or convoluted, managing to be just about accessible for all ages while providing enough for older audiences. From the start, the story has much going on to stop it from having a dull spot while not feeling rushed, a danger with the short length.
Altogether, a great episode. 9/10