Anime for kids

[tōkai devotee]

Hi! My kids are learning Japanese - - thanks to me (^-^)/
My 9 year old knows some vocab, such as greetings, animal names, fruit, and that sort of thing. But she doesn't know much grammar yet. She only knows です。eg. 私は＿＿＿＿＿です。＿＿＿＿が好きです。She wants to watch Anime and I'm thinking it would be a great way for her to start listening to Japanese (as long as we get the Japanese version and not the dubbed one!) so I'm wondering which Anime would be good to start with. I'm not a fan of Anime myself so I don't really know of many. The only one I know of is Naruto. Maybe that'd be a good one to start with ~??

[sei]

I haven't watched many anime... But one that doesn't involve blood and is fun to watch, is Prince of Tennis. From the ones I know, that's the one more appropriate for that age.

[wccrawford]

Chi's Sweet Home. It's about a cat that gets lost and is found by a family of humans. VERY simple speech. Might be a little kiddie for a 9 year old, but ... I dunno, I found it sorta entertaining at 32, since I could actually understand a lot of it.

Minami-ke. It's about some sisters that live together and go to school and stuff. There's a lot of comedy and antics involving boys, but nothing even so romantic as holding hands in the first season. (I haven't watched beyond that.) Vocab is probably over her head, but she'd like it if she could understand it.

Sailor Moon.

Keroro Gunsou. (Sgt Frog.) No real violence, even though it's about frog-aliens taking over Earth. Uses fake names for earth and earthlings, so can be confusing there. (Pekopon instead of Chikyuu, pekoponjin instead of... Whatever 'earthlings' is. Chikyuujin?)

Haibane Renmei. It's about girls that grow from eggs and get a halo and angel wings. They live next to a town that keeps the fed and clothed, but they have to do 'work' to trade for it, like work for the clock-maker, or the tailor or whatnot. They aren't allowed to have money, only trade items. (I haven't finished watching this series, I'm about 1/3 through it. It might change later, but I doubt it.)

[astaroth]

Haibane Renmei. It's about girls that grow from eggs and get a halo and angel wings. They live next to a town that keeps the fed and clothed, but they have to do 'work' to trade for it, like work for the clock-maker, or the tailor or whatnot. They aren't allowed to have money, only trade items. (I haven't finished watching this series, I'm about 1/3 through it. It might change later, but I doubt it.)

Haibane Renmei is a great series but I doubt that it was ever intended for kids. The beginning is very light-hearted and funny, but the more you go in, the darker it gets. (The last two episodes are in particular very dark and utterly sad, though it will go through a catharsis as that after all is the series's leitmotif.)
Truly a great series, but for more mature audience I guess.

[NocturnalOcean]

Check out this link:

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/子供向けアニメ

Also I think Doraemon would be as good as any.

You have to be aware that even if anime is aimed towards children, doesn't mean the language is easy.

[yukamina]

Naruto and Prince of Tennis are more mostly aimed at a male audience, and Naruto is pretty violent, I think. I second that Haibane Renmei gets really dark later on.

She might like Card Captor Sakura, Princess Tutu(mild nudity warning), or maybe Pokemon.

[Harisenbon]

A lot of the anime I'm seeing mentioned is more geared towards native 9 year olds, or even jr high school students, so I would try to stay away from those -- if only as they require a higher level of Japanese to understand... Naruto, Prince of Tennis, etc fall into this category. (Especially with all the ninja words in naruto)

Doraemon and Sazae-san are very good for younger children -- the language is simple, the content is wholesome and you can probably understand a lot of the story just by watching.

Kero-gunsou is fun, but has a lot of plays on japanese words, and kanji usage, so might not be best for a new learner.

Crayon-shinchan is geared towards young children and is easy to understand, but is rather raunchy at times.

Anpan-man is a standard favorite among the younger crowd (5yr) so it will have very easy to understand japanese, but probably won't be very interesting to a 9 year old.

Hope that helps.

[wccrawford]

Kero-gunsou is fun, but has a lot of plays on japanese words, and kanji usage, so might not be best for a new learner.

A lot of old-school US cartoons have a -ton- of content that is way, way over the heads of any pre-teen. That doesn't stop them from being fun for everyone. I put Keroro Gunsou in that same category.

Also, I personally don't care for Doraemon, but I have to admit a lot of people do, and it's at the right level.

[tōkai devotee]

Thanks everyone for your replies!

Harisenbon's suggestion of Crayon Shinchan sounds good. It's one of my personal favourites, and we have some videos from a few years ago somewhere !! Just need to locate them!

I certainly don't expect her to understand every word. Heck, I reckon I'd have trouble understanding it. But I just want her to get a feel for the language.

[yukamina]

I stumbled across Crayon Shinchan on TV one time and with in 30 seconds he was talking about penises. I dunno, it's seems like a pretty vulgar show.

[Harisenbon]

I stumbled across Crayon Shinchan on TV one time and with in 30 seconds he was talking about penises. I dunno, it's seems like a pretty vulgar show.

It is pretty vulgar (more so by american standards) but is aimed squarely at the elem. school age group.
Same with おぼっちゃま君 which was essentially Crayon Shin-Chan from when I was growing up...

[jcdietz03]

I am going to volunteer しゅごキャラ！
A story about a transforming 5th grade magical girl named Amu Hinamori. I can understand a little of it. The language used is definitely simpler. It seems to be aimed at (Japanese) 5th grade girls - I say that because it matches the main character.

[Stone_Cold]

I’m personally into Mature Anime (17+/18+) and I’m not familiar with Child/Teen Anime. The best place for finding an Anime series is directly on the broadcaster’s website (ex. http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp). Now you’ll want to search online for that Anime series (ex. Bing Video Search). Finding legitimate high quality (ex. Normal TV Quality) full episodes is exhausting unless you know where to look. I’m not referring to YouTube’s [etc…] ####ty video. Yes, watching/downloading Anime online without the artist's permission’s 100% illegal. Nevertheless, I cannot watch these Anime episodes in America without the internet. Here’s some help: use dattebayo.com and/or search Torrent [Child] Anime online (w/ Bing).Once you’ve got everything in place it’ll be easy watching/downloading [Child] Anime.

Needed Configuration (Latest Editions)
Microsoft Windows Media Player (other) DEFAULT
DivX Software (without converter) Required
BitTorrent Software
Antivirus Software (needed anyway)
[ETC…]

Notes
# Some Anime downloads aren’t Torrents and are downloaded temporarily or permanently without Torrent software.
# DivX’s required for watching video and I personally don’t recommend anything else; unless your OS isn’t compatible.
# Make sure your computer’s heavily protected with a single antivirus program. This is for protecting you against malicious websites and popups. It’s needed anyways. lol


My original post’s been dramatically shortened for easier/faster reading.

[yukamina]

I use CCCP with it's classic media player instead of DivX.

[Kenitai]

Chi's Sweet Home! Too funny and too CUTE. Dialog is also really simple.