Sesame Street in Japan

The American children's television series Sesame Street (Japanese: セサミストリート, Hepburn: Sesamisutorīto) has a long history in Japan, airing for three decades as a dubbed program, and recently restarting as a local co-production.

Disambiguation: There was also a Sesame Street (manga) published from 1990 to 1992 unrelated to this.

Sesame Street's dubbed original (1971-2004, 2020-onwards)

Sesame Street has been one of NHK's most successful children's programs and one of the first to be imported from overseas. Sesame Street first aired on November 8, 1971, but was taken off the network in the early 1980s. It resumed from 1988 until the end of March 2004, when production on a local adaptation was announced, which NHK refused to be involved in. While Sesame Street is primarily designed for preschool children, teenagers and adults watched the program as a guide to learning English (though much later on, a dubbed version was available).

NHK also co-produced the 1988 PBS special, Big Bird in Japan.

The original show aired on NHK until April 2004.

After 16 years, "Elmo's Playdate" was aired on May 16, 2020.

Sesame Street's Japanese co-production

In November 2003, the brand's master license was acquired by Asatsu-DK Co., Ltd. and WE'VE Co., Ltd.[1][2] Sesame Street Partners Japan was founded the following year. Along with the original partners, Japan Keizai Company, TV Tokyo Broadband, and Odyssey Communications were added to the "consortium."[3]

The partnership initiated development of a new series, to focus on literacy and Japanese culture, with a curriculum developed by local educators.[3]

TV Tokyo commissioned a local co-production, that began airing weekly in October 2004.

Besides basic literacy skills, this version of Sesame Street focuses on ethics, interacting with friends, and environmental issues. The series is in Japanese, except for regularly included English lesson segments.

At the start of the show, four new Muppet characters were introduced: Teena, a kindful pinkish-purple monster who likes to sing and dance; Mojabo, a happy go lucky green and purple monster who likes to exercise; Pierre, a blue-and-yellow frog; and Arthur, a little yellow bird. In 2006, two new Muppets were added to the series—Grorie, a female orange Grover-like monster, and Meg, a Japanese girl. A few established Sesame Street characters appear in new segments, most notably Elmo, Big Bird, and Cookie Monster, who in the Japanese series has a propensity to laugh out loud and is used heavily to deal with emotional issues.

While Sesame Workshop is generally on the forefront of cultural understanding when creating the co-productions, this is apparently not the case with the Japanese version. One script included a plot line where a child trips during a race at a school sports festival. Sesame Workshop insisted the other characters must help him up, something the local producers insisted was unrealistic in modern Japanese culture.

An article in The Japan Times reported that the show was suffering from low ratings in its early months: "Viewers are complaining about the differences in the characters' voices compared with the NHK-aired version and about the exclusive use of Japanese."

Another scathing article, published in November 2004 in the Yomiuri Shinbun, was titled "A wrong turn on new Sesame Street":

"[The] new and not improved version of Sesame Street...opens with the cast shouting: 'English, Everybody. It's Sesame Street,' but it was 20 minutes later before we heard another English phrase. One of the better decisions NHK made this year was not to get involved with the Japanization of Sesame Street.

"The show... bears very little resemblance to the original.... If anything, the show looks poised to further the scope of Japlish and make the work of the nation's English teachers even more challenging. First, there is the perplexing problem of how to pronounce the names. Since the show is now all in Japanese...bye-bye, Big Bird, and hello, Biggu Bâdo, Bâto, and Kukkî Monsutâ....

"Then, at last, came the show's ode to its English-language-education roots—a section called English on Street set in a convenience store. Big Bird wants an umeboshi ika manju...The obliging onî-san...makes him one and we get the English phrase for the day: 'Tastes bad!' No one bothers to add an 'It,' as in 'It tastes bad.' Who needs a complete, correct English sentence in a Japanized version of Sesame Street? 'Tastes bad' is repeated in an assortment of very bad accents and then we are given the appropriate translation: mazui. That is definitely the taste the show left with me—mazui, mazui, mazui.... Yes, all in all, I'd say this show is a giant six-step leap backward for early childhood education in Japan."

Muppet cast
  • Elmo (エルモ, Erumo): Kenta Matsumoto
  • Big Bird (ビッグバード, Biggubādo): Satoshi Tsuruoka
  • Cookie Monster (クッキーモンスター, Kukkīmonsutā): Kei Kikuchi
  • Teena and Pierre: Rena Mizushiro
  • Mojabo: Hideki Tanaka
  • Arthur and Grorie: Kaori Takeda
  • Meg: Ayako Iguchi
  • Yan Monster: Aiko Yamada

Human cast
  • Ari Ota
  • Hirotarō Yamada
  • Sanae Morisawa
  • Nana Koizumi
  • Dario Toda

Crew
  • Director: Hajime Matsuki
  • Producer: Yoshikazu Beniya
  • Editor: Jonok Viluk
  • Scripter: Donny Osmand
  • Sound effect crew: Joel Nomi, Kilsa Mijuski, Limno Heisnjo

References
  1. "日本国内における「セサミ ストリート」の商品化およびプロモーション事業に関するお知らせ". ADK (in Japanese). 27 November 2003. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  2. "Notice regarding merchandising and promotion business of "Sesame Street" in Japan". ADK (in Japanese). 28 November 2003. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  3. "Founding of Sesame Street Partners Japan". ADK (in Japanese). 29 March 2004. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
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