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

[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.