The Silent Reading List #3

HAJIMETE NO OTSUKAI - 2018 Cute Overload Special

This is a long one, but I have so much time for Hajimete no Otsukai. I'll say it now: this is a fantastic choice if you're looking for something to show a person who doesn't usually watch Japanese TV.

This show has been going since 1991, and even if you haven't seen it directly, you've probably learned about it through cultural osmosis (at least one batsu game bus segment had chono show up as a director of an episode). The sensible translation of the title is "My First Errand," but recently Netflix aired some clip collections as "Old Enough." Weird choice, but I'm sure the localization team knows what they're doing. It was very surprising to see it blow up on the English internet in March of 2022.

The conceit of the show is that in Japan—where things are generally very safe and public transit is famously efficacious—it's not uncommon to send out children as young as three or four to do some kind of solo trip. There's probably a sociologist somewhere who's written a whole thesis on Confucian approaches to child-rearing, something about how the whole society acknowledges a duty to raise all children together, something something independence something. These solo errands can be things like a parent "forgetting" their lunch and the child taking it across town to their workplace, going to the grocery store and remembering to buy certain ingredients for dinner, often there are other stops along the way (go drop some money in the shrine, get some fruit from grandma, etc.). We see the children in their homes first while the parent(s) send them off, and then follow them through the course of their errand. All of the camera crew are disguised, with cameras put into things like pet carriers and boxes so that the kids don't catch on (as they admit in some of the episodes, this only works up to a certain age).

I won't go blow-by-blow with each of the segments, but there is one where you meet the child X years later after they've grown up (another feature you see sometimes). These segments are all amazing, you get an incredible view into town living around Japan, and also into the psychology of these children. Watching the gears turn in their little heads while they try to figure out what their next turn is meant to be, or which items they were supposed to get from the store is always entertaining. It can get pretty emotional as well, watching these kids trying their best and persevering even though nobody is watching or encouraging them.

Also, brace yourself for "SHOUGENAIDE YO BABY" to be sung through your speakers at intervals. You don't understand now, but you will, and you'll be into it just like I am ヽ(´ー｀)ノ

HAJIMETE NO OTSUKAI - 2018 Cute Overload Special