What a Netflix Hit Hajimete no Otsukai (Old Enough) Really Reveals About Japanese Risk-Taking
Japan has been a little bemused to find that a long-running family-favorite TV show, known here as Hajimete no Otsukai (My First Errand), has suddenly achieved international fame on Netflix as Old Enough.
The program, which features preschoolers running errands by themselves, has triggered worldwide debate about parenting standards. One article in the UK blasted the reality TV show as “bizarre,” quoting a child psychologist who described it as “exploitative and dangerous.” NPR felt compelled to warn parents not to let their offspring emulate kids on the show lest they run foul of local laws.
The Japanese are tickled that the heavily-scripted show, which has aired here for three decades, is seen as “dangerous.” After all, this is a country where children frequently ride trains solo to get to elementary school, squeezing in among the salarymen at rush hour.
But it’s wrong to conclude that the Japanese are more risk-tolerant than the west’s helicopter parents. Foreigners and the Japanese take away different lessons from Old Enough. The show isn’t really about children innovating their way around tough challenges. It’s more about how to become functioning members of society — through the proverbial school of hard knocks. If anything, Old Enough — which first aired in 1991 — reflects some long-established societal precepts, which are only now beginning to change.
Take career expectations. According to a recent survey, the top choice choice parents and grandparents want for their kids and grandkids is a job in the national civil service. Number two? The local civil service. The country’s largest company, Toyota Motor Corp., was third.
Not that civil service jobs are particularly attractive. They’re tough to get and pay only a
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