AKICILJ: Japanese pop culture recommendations for Alex.

[rivka]

Alex is learning about Japan this week. We're going to be doing origami and reading stories and going to the museum to look at classical Japanese art and eating sushi and learning to write a few kanji and so on. But modern Japanese pop culture is so vibrant, and is such a massive international phenomenon, that I'd really like to expose Alex to some of that, rather than just the high and/or folk culture elements that kids' educational materials tend to include.

I know that there are people on my friends list who follow Japanese pop culture, and others whose teenage kids follow it. It would be awesome if you could link me to web-available resources like songs/music videos, cartoons, toys, clothes, etc. which are young-child appropriate (that's the part that makes just Googling this on my own tricky) and which would give Alex an idea of things that might be enjoyed by young Japanese girls.

(No tentacle porn please, kthxbai.)

Comments

[ailbhe]

Has she seen Totoro? Totoro is brilliant. I don't know much at all about Japanese pop culture but I know there's a ton of Totoro merchandise.

Also, there are millions of Bento communities on LJ.

And it seems like everywhere sells Hello Kitty underpants. Both L&E had them at one point.

We may have started FIAR here; I'm hoping to find time and energy to blog it a bit.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Was just about to say Totoro myself; also, Kiki's Delivery Service. And possibly Spirited Away, though the intensity might be too much in a couple of spots.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

I agree, Spirited Away is too intense for young kids.

[ailbhe]

We really like Kiki's Delivery Service, partially because we have photos of our kids in Visby and outside the walls of Visby. But I'm in two minds about how much I approve of the romance storyline bit.

I do love the girls' underwear in those two though, because they look comfy and large and practical, which is difficult to find...

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Kiki's Delivery Service would be *just* up Alex's alley.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I not only like My Neighbor Tortoro, I have it on my Netflix list and when I watch it, it goes back to the bottom (as do Galaxy Quest and Monsters, Inc). I like most of Hayao Miyazaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki)'s films, but I think Spirited Away and the Porco Rosso films are too old for Alex.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I also highly recommend Totoro, and the new Miyazaki movie Ponyo. All of Miyazaki's movies are good, but those are the most appropriate for young children. You can find a lot of Morning Musume on Youtube. This is Japanese pop at its most bubblegummy, but some of the costumes do get kind of racy: "Mikan" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r3txMbN9lo "Kanashimi Twilight" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r3txMbN9lo "Osakana Tengoku" is a novelty song that was popular when I was in Japan. It's about the different kinds of fish and how if you eat them you'll get smart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDJHc7Bao3Q "Pythagoras Switch" is a segment of a Japanese kid's TV show where they demonstrate all kinds of ridiculous Rube Goldbert devices. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93nBnQWRw4

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course, how could I forget Ponyo? I guess it's recent enough that I've only seen it once. Perfect for younger ages, for sure.

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

Check out "Bottle Fairies" -- it's a cute anime aimed at small children. It explains aspects of Japanese culture and holidays.

Here's a link to the first episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV1Q6Z3tVxc

[rivka.livejournal.com]

That is... deeply weird. I bet she'll like it. Thanks!

[kiya]

I have asked my friends who speak Japanese pop culture for insight. A quick query: is "what Japanese five-year-olds were into five years ago" sufficiently good, or do you feel a need to get something current?

Also, apparently Pokemon is still big.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Five years ago is "current" for my purposes, thanks.

[moobabe.livejournal.com]

I agree about Totoro--Hannah loved it when she was younger. She also really liked Kiki's Delivery Service, but maybe read a review to double-check that it's okay for you and Alex.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

Kiki was the first movie E. ever watched (at about 2). He was enchanted by the flying bicycle.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Kamichu! is focused on traditional Japanese culture, and it is young child appropriate. The middle school girls in it do not have cleavage, nor are their skirts up to their butts. Glenn and I watched several episodes of the anime, which we got through our local library. The animation of many minor gods was charming; we eventually stopped watching it because it was too appropriate for young children to keep our attention engaged.

It was especially interesting to us to see Kamichu!'s perspective on World War II. If you see that episode, it should not be disturbing to Alex, as it's quite gentle, but it was really jarring to us with our American viewpoint.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Peach Fuzz is an American manga for girls that's supposed to be very good--not Japanese but in a Japanese genre.

Thirding/fourthing Totoro. It does have a whole "mom is sick" theme that might worry some kids--I don't picture Alex as a worrier but I mention it just in case.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

There’s a Japanese Kids’ show called PythgoraSwitch, which doesn’t seem necessarily “Japanese Culture-y”, but is what Japanese kids are watching. We’ve watched several on YouTube. It’s all about Rube-Goldberg machines, which may just send her on another fun tangent. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PythagoraSwitch

[juthwara.livejournal.com]

Kiki's Delivery Service is definitely K's favorite, but Totoro might be better in terms of conveying some of the everyday aspects of Japanese life - the main characters live in a traditional Japanese house in the country, you see them doing things like sit on the floor around the dinner table and bathing together as a family. Kiki takes place in a European-style city, so while it's wonderful, it's not as Japanese for educational purposes. You can find good information on all of Miyazaki's stuff at http://www.nausicaa.net

Hamtaro was very popular with little girls several years ago. It's cloying and overly cutesy, but, well, that accurately reflects Japanese pop culture for little kids.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Bento is really fun, and enjoyed by many schoolkids. There are some great bento sites with cute food, neat recipes, and so on. I don't know any that aren't kid friendly.

http://www.justbento.com/

That's a fun one! I like the Miyazaki movies, too. Kiki's Delivery Service, Totoro, those are fun. Pokemon is Japanese, and pretty easy to find.

For toys, she might like some of the kawaii stationary/toys. My personal absolute favorite is Monokuro Boo!
http://www.shopkawaii.com/San-X-Monokuro-Boo-s/40.htm
Two adorable pigs, one black and one white, with the tag-line Simple is best!

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

(deleted and reposted for html fail)

I'm trying to think of the kid-friendliest manga/anime I've watched that's not already super-common on tv. All three of these are heavy on the interesting female characters and are available on Netflix.

-Kaleido Star is a really cute anime about a girl who wants to join a Cirque de Soleil-style performance troupe. (Its central theme--"I'm going to work hard to become the best [X] EVAR" is super, super common in kid-friendly anime.)
-Bamboo Blade is a similar one in that way, about a high school Kendo team, and very much a "regular kids doing regular stuff" kind of series. Of these two, I suspect that you might prefer Bamboo Blade but Alex would prefer the sparkliness of Kaleido Star.
-Azumanga Daioh has no central plot whatsoever--it's just a bunch of junior high school girls and their teacher living their lives, but it has more of the type of cultural touchstones that might be useful for an actual lesson. Things Alex might notice that would show up in most episodes--their school uniforms, their school lunches, the idea of cultural variations within Japan (a character that's new to town is constantly shown as not knowing how things work in Tokyo and having a funny accent. She's got a Texan accent in the English dub.) There is some very, very mild PG stuff that an adult will catch (a male teacher that's always hanging around when the girls are having a swimming lesson, a female teacher that goes bar-hopping with her friend on weekends), but I can't think of anything I wouldn't want a child to see.

Bento would be another fun thing, unless you want to avoid the inevitable requests for a fancy lunch. The LJ Bento community (http://community.livejournal.com/bentolunch/) is very friendly with everything from the simple to ornate. This (http://www.e-obento.com/main-Frame-set.htm) is my favorite bento blog, which is in Japanese though online translators sometimes help a bit. Click a month on the top to get started.

JBox/JList (http://www.jbox.com/) (JBox is the <18-safe version) has a lot of amusing things for sale under the "Traditional", "Wacky" and "Snack" sections. It's a mix of goofy tourist junk and actual stuff that people get homesick for, as far as I can tell, but it might be a fun place to wander for ideas.

[tchemgrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, and for reading material: Yotsuba&! is an incredibly adorable and child-appropriate manga that shows a four-year old child named Yotsuba discovering many things in day-to-day Japanese life. (A typical storyline: Yotsuba learns that recycling is good for the earth, and so she tapes an empty potato chip package to her shirt and deems it a "snack pocket". Then she asks for snacks to fill the new pocket. That kind of thing.)

If Alex has read any comics, she might find the backwards-relative-to-American comics interesting. The language is not early-reader simple, though.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

One more thought - I never got very far into Ranma 1/2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma_%C2%BD) but it was intended for children. The Wiki article says teen girls were the biggest readers but readership went younger - how much younger, I'm not sure. It's been the early 90s since I watched some of the first episodes of the anime, so I don't remember much that would help me suggest whether it's suitable or not, but it might be worth a look.

Also: Sailor Moon. And I echo the mentions of Pokemon.

And any lesson on Japanese pop culture should include some Pocky.

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of breast flashes and accidental groping in Ranma 1/2. It's a gender-bending comedy in which the main character is a boy cursed to turn into a girl. It's much more aimed at teen and older.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with Yotsuba&!, which is in print in translation. No video adaptation, though. She starts out acting more like an alien and is currently mostly like a very enthusiastic four-year-old, but in both cases she has great adventures learning what life is like (in Japan, though of course a lot of it applies to everywhere).

Ryoko Tsunoda has done some very weird little songs for kids, but none seems to be up on Youtube or anything. If you're interested in just hearing the audio, I'd be happy to put them up on Box.net for a day or two. They're similar to English-language songs in a lot of ways, which might be cool.

And, of course, Cardcaptor Sakura (whence the icon) is adorable and fairly age-appropriate, though it's a little older, there is an awful lot of it, and mostly it teaches about magical girls rather than actual Japan. An important pop-culture phenomenon, though!

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of my favorite things ever, so I'll second the recommendation, but it should be noted that the anime is only available subtitled, as dub rights were used by the inferior heavily edited American version "Cardcaptors".

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that kids need dubs. Thank you for the correction! On the other hand, the action is usually pretty self-explanatory. I would never have stood for incomplete understanding of anything as a kid, but maybe Alex would be more mellow about it?

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

I think the real question might be "how willing is Rivka to read the episode to Alex"? It sounded to me like they were going to watch this stuff together.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I was actually kind of liking Cardcaptors (anime fix on broadcast TV -- win!), until I found out that they'd conveniently avoided dubbing any episode that didn't feature the male sidekick character prominently.

*ptui*

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

*nod* And they chopped out any hint of romance, down to something as innocent as Sakura having a crush on her older brother's friend.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

This is slightly around the corner from your request, but try a Google Images search of "amigurimi"(or "amiguri") - really cute little Japanese knit (or crochet) stuffed figures. Some of the patterns are simple enough for a beginning knitter, and I know kids as young as five or six who've learned to knit. If she shows an interest in craft, it might be an amusing direction to try.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm here via mactavish. :)

Most of what I can think of is not available online because of copyright issues. I really want to recommend the manga Chi's Sweet Home (about a kitten), but you'd have to get it from the library. You can watch it online legitimately, but only with subtitles, and while I usually prefer subtitles, I totally recognize that dubs are a lot more kind to young kids! http://www.crunchyroll.com/media-526174/chis-sweet-home-chis-new-address-1/

Music:

Halcali - Marching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8OfrfK7Z1w
Halcali - Tandem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOXKmrKTjvM
10nin Matsuri - Dancing! Natsu Matsuri http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EIRFaIQ7i4
Zone - Secret Base http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFCHNgkfU10
Otsuka Ai - Planetarium http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIxJH4JqrII
WaT - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68pgSr4T7BA
Utada Hikaru - Boku wa Kuma http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhgHJgUc4JE

Street fashion:
Style Arena - http://style-arena.jp/street/
Tokyo Fashion - http://tokyofashion.com/photos/

Magazines:

Akasugu Kids - http://www.vvshu.com/view/akasugukids/09summer/ (It's a complete magazine, which is both good and bad--you can see all the toy ads and adorable bento photo shoots and all the boring ads!)
Kids & Mam - http://www.vvshu.com/view/kidsmam/2010summer/
mono kids - http://www.vvshu.com/view/monokids/2009ss/

Random, inoffensive art:

http://akaeigacyou.at.webry.info/
http://www.wachi.co.jp/atelier/ (Oh, I think you can get some of the Wachifield books in English now)

Toys and things from one of my favorite places I wound up shopping when I was in Japan, and a place I'm sure she'd love:
http://www.hands-net.jp/shop/special/100805kenkyu/index.html
Toys - http://www.hands-net.jp/shop/disp/CSfDispListPage_001.jsp?action=&dispNo=001008016&q=&v=&j=&type=03&sort=&rowPerPage=50&min=&max=&page=1
Puzzles - http://www.hands-net.jp/shop/disp/CSfDispListPage_001.jsp?action=&dispNo=001008002&q=&v=&j=&sort=&rowPerPage=50&type=03&min=&max=

They sell these awesome automaton kits, but I couldn't find them.

Re-ment toys/collectibles... just click on the colorful pictures under New Item to get the idea.
http://www.re-ment.co.jp/
Pictures of the boxes here: http://www.hlj.com/hljlist2/?Word=rement&Dis=-2&MacroType=FigGsh
People playing with them here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/re-mentaddicts/pool/

Modern Japanese dolls:
Jenny's Room - http://www.jennys-room.net/
Pinky Street - http://www.pinky-street.com/index.php?page=all_releases

From a famous Japanese kids' show (oh, I see takumashii already linked it, because we're often on the same wavelength, but I'll leave them ;)):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rk1YYqDYD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93nBnQWRw4 (there used to be a subtitled one explaining the steps of the march, but I can't find it!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93nBnQWRw4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYJ-eVDH6OE

Anyway, let me know if you want more of something in particular. :)

P. S. I was partly homeschooled myself. :)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Just an nth recommendation for My Neighbour Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service.

I thought Ponyo was okay, but I think that the two aforementioned were stronger, and they both also feature young girls as their major character(s). (You could argue that Ponyo does in some sense, but I'm not sure that it's as easy to relate to Ponyo herself.)

Ryuichi Sakamoto has some great songs. They might be a little boring for kids, though. He used to be in seminal electronica group Yellow Magic Orchestra (kind of similar to Kraftwerk and roughly contemporary with them), but now sort of straddles adult contemporary pop and contemporary classical piano. This is one of his better-known piano works. This is one of my favourite songs of his, but the lyrics aren't in English. It's an arrangement of a traditional Okinawan song, so I don't expect anything horrible, but I can't say for sure. I can't offhand find good links for his poppier stuff.

If "the lead singer is Japanese and their music is kind of highly Japanese-influenced" and you don't mind introducing her to live punk music, I suppose you could go with Deerhoof performing Panda Panda Panda, which is certainly child friendly if your child wandering around singing, "Panda panda panda panda panda panda panda panda pands," won't drive you homicidal.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I suppose a little more actually-Japanese than Deerhoof would be OneOne, a collaboration between Deerhoof's singer and the singer from the Tenniscoats. They formed in California, but are both Japanese, and the above video is Japanese. I have *no* idea what they're saying in it, even though I think they're speaking English. So you'd have to try to figure that out. And again, with sort of indie rock music. But it'd certainly be a good impression of some of the actual music happening there.

It's hard to think about the borders of what constitute "kid friendly" here. I mean, I think that Merzbow represent a huge chunk of the kind of thing that goes on musically in Japan, and they're generally instrumental, but they also tend to be just walls of abrasive high-volume static.