Folktales from Japan (Furusato Saisei Nippon no Mukashi Banashi) (Crunchyroll link) is an anime series that is probably not to everyone’s taste.

This is a kodomo anime–intended for elementary or preschool-aged children. If you’re a typical Western fan you probably feel that you started watching anime to avoid cartoons like that.

However there are some reasons why a Western anime fan might benefit from watching this show (aside from the fact that it is well-done and rather charming.) One is that it contains useful cultural background information that will carry over when watching other anime. Just as an English-speaking writer assume’s that his audience knows who Goldilocks and Snow White are, a Japanese writer will assume that his audience knows all about Momotarou the Peach Boy and Kaguya the Moon Princess. So this will help you pick up references in other shows which otherwise might not make sense.


If you are trying to learn Japanese this is a particularly good show to listen to with the subtitles off. The vocabulary is relatively simple and the sentences are well-formed, unlike the crude slangy speech commonly heard in anime. Since this show is intended for young children the narrators use plain speech, which is fine as long as you understand that you shouldn’t normally speak to a Japanese adult that way. You need to master plain speech even if you can’t use it, since it is the foundation upon which polite speech is built.