More People Need to Watch This Wholesome Japanese Docuseries on Netflix
Earlier this year, I misplaced two 14-year-old girls. We were at an anime convention when two of the three teens in our group went, with permission, to buy food. They didn’t come back. The Seattle Convention Center was packed with tens of thousands of people, most dressed like characters from Demon Slayer.
It was a frantic hour-plus before they returned, apologetically (phone had no data; convention center had no Wi-Fi; lost track of time) after I already had played every hellish scenario in my mind. Were they abducted? Hit by a car? Forgot where we said to meet? Slain by a demon?
So it was with the memory of that lingering panic that I settled in to watch Old Enough on Netflix. It’s a long-running Japanese documentary series where television cameras follow kids as young as 2 while their parents send them off on their first ever errand away from home.
The program is called Hajimete no Otsukai (My First Errand) in Japan, where it’s been running for decades. A few of the tots we see on the Netflix episodes can probably drive by now.
Some of the errands are pretty simple — in one, a 2-year-old toddled a few