Kid stuff

fledgling otaku is wondering what to watch next. I thought it might be useful to list animes I've seen that are suitable for youngsters, sorted by my estimate of the minimum appropriate age. Those that are available only as fansubs are marked (FS).

Preschool:
Binchou-tan (FS)
My Neighbor Totoro

Early grade school:
Bottle Fairy
Sugar, a Tiny Snow Fairy
Galaxy Angel Z/A
Mama Is a Fourth-Grader (FS)
Peter Pan no Bouken (FS)

Older grade school:
All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku OVA
Angelic Layer
Cardcaptor Sakura
Castle in the Sky
The Castle of Cagliostro
Grrl Power
Hikaru no Go
Interstella 5555
Kamichu!
Keroro Gunsou (FS)
Kiki's Delivery Service

Junior high school:
Jubei-Chan: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch*
Magical Project S
Porco Rosso
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (FS)**
Shinigami no Ballad (FS)
Someday's Dreamers
Spirited Away
Whisper of the Heart

These are my best guesses at age-appropriateness.*** I don't have kids of my own (though I do have plenty of nephews and nieces to whom I send books and anime).

Additional possibilities include Rose of Versailles (FS), for older kids, and Twin Spica (FS), of which I've only seen the opening episodes so far. Kaiketsu Zorori (FS) and Ribon no Kishi (FS) are likely to be good entertainment for youngsters, but only the first episode of each is available. I also want to take another look at Mahou Shoujo Tai (FS); I was ambivalent about it, but Pixy Misa likes it, and it does have a strangely familiar ending theme.

Rozen Maiden (FS) has been recommended for kids. Nope. Although most of the characters are dolls about fifteen inches tall, it's not a children's story at all. I also wouldn't show Azumanga Daioh to youngsters. Kimura grosses out adults; I certainly wouldn't want to subject any children to him. I wish I could recommend World of Narue, but there are too many panty shots.

Howl's Moving Castle isn't on the list because it's a disaster. Sugar Sugar Rune and numerous other shows I've sampled aren't there because they're tedious junk. (Keroro Gunsou is fun junk.)

There's a lot I haven't seen, and undoubtedly there's much else worth recommending. Don't hesitate to suggest other titles. If there is sufficient interest, I may put together a web site for child-friendly anime.

Post script: Yes, I did mean the first Nuku Nuku OVA. Thank you, Ubu, for catching that.

*Marketed in America as Jubei-chan, the Ninja Girl, but that's wrong. Jubei isn't ninja trash.

**Yes, really. It's every bit as ridiculous as you would expect live-action Sailor Moon to be, but even so, what I've seen is surprisingly engaging.

***It's unpredictable what kids will like. fledgling otaku's four-year-old enjoyed Someday's Dreamers, which doesn't strike me as a pre-schooler's show at all. My five-year-old nephew discovered Serial Experiments Lain among his father's DVDs and was fascinated by it. That's definitely not a children's show.

MORE...

Actually, there is already a web site of anime reviews intended for parents.

Though I do have to wonder about them: they gave a "G" rating to "Grave of the Fireflies" and DBZ. (And a PG to "Video Girl Ai".)

they gave a G rating to Grave of the Fireflies??!?!?!

Don, don't forget the warning that Totoro is crack :)

That site has not been updated in two years. While it's useful, if not entirely trustworthy, it might still be worthwhile to collect information about more recent anime.

I enjoyed The Mysterious Cities of Gold immensely when I was a child. It's a great adventure series and has a bit of a Miyazaki-esque feel. It hasn't been officially released in English yet, although there is a high-quality bootleg available from home.comcast.net/~skutt/mcog.html.

Another one I'd recommend is Samurai Pizza Cats, which is a rare example of a show that actually benefitted from being largely re-written, at least as far as humor goes (I watched a few subtitled episodes that were directly translated from the Japanese scripts, and they weren't nearly as funny as the dub). I wouldn't give it a strong recommendation for younger kids though, since much of its humor is aimed at adults. It's not necessarily off-color (though it does have a bit of that), just stuff young kids probably wouldn't get. This one has also not been officially released, but most of the episodes can be found online.

The Snow Queen (based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale) *might* make a good show for older children... but I haven't watched most of it as less than a half dozen episodes have been fansubbed. The episodes I've seen are beautifully drawn and animated. I've intended to check out the raws, but time, time...

On Nuku Nuku, make sure it's the first OVA or maybe the TV series. In the 2nd OVA (Nuku Nuku Dash!) they upped Ryo's age and changed the tone of the show. Review here.