If you have not seenOld Enough!yet, run, don’t walk, to your nearest streaming device and boot upNetflix. Like the children on this long-standing Japanese reality show, just be sure to use a crosswalk. While Americans have suchcultural touchstones asJeaporadyandWipeout!, there is nothing in the contemporary American media landscape quite so endearing as this. Far from the myriad weird television game shows that have populated Japanese airways for years,Old Enough!is a wholesome yet humorous exploration of childhoodand the ever-present theme of aging.
Essentially, each episode ofOld Enough!, which has been formatted on Netflix into easily consumable clips of around ten minutes, follows either a single child or a few children, who are assigned an everyday task by their parents, and their subsequent attempt to complete said task independently. Obviously, these lead to all manner of goofs and gags, butOld Enough!also serves as a stark reminder that young children, often thought to be entirely helpless, are creative and capable.
Old Enough!is still running, though the production of the Japanese reality show had waxed and waned since its debut in the ’90s. How might it look if Netflix wanted to make a similar series following American children? More importantly, would an AmericanOld Enough!spin-off even be logistically possible?
Suburban Sprawl
In a lot of ways,Old Enough!is very familiar to American audiences. They can sympathize with the hesitant yet intrepid children as they go about their assigned tasks and also feel the palpable worry expressed by their waiting parents. In other respects, however, the show is entirely unrelatable to the average American. If Netflix were to reboot the series, they would need to contend with the plights of suburbia.
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The cities featured inOld Enough!might as well be from another planet, respective to what would be an American iteration’s suburban counterparts. Japanese cities were designed around personal mobility. Children onOld Enough!seldom even have to use public transportation; the goods and services they’ve been tasked with acquiring are all within walking distance, even on their tiny toddler legs. Think of the sprawling developments that have been slowly sprinkling the American countryside. Would the children in an American reboot ofOld Enough!walk alongside a busy highway to the nearest mega-mart? It seems a far stretch from ambling down a sunlit mountain road to the local fish market in Japan.
Car Conundrum
America loves cars. In fact, Americans love the automobile so much that they dedicated an entire three-partanimated series to anthropomorphizing racecarsand rust-buckets alike. In a similar vein to the struggles of suburban sprawl, the cars which line this nation’s roadways would be a major impediment to Netflix creating an American reboot ofOld Enough!
In the first segment ofOld Enough!on Netflix’s curation, a young boy needs to cross a busy street. In preparation, his mother gives him a small flag, which he is to hold up high, look both ways, and march across the street. Imagine how this scene might look in an American iteration of the show. What good would that little sign do against a fully-loaded semi-truck? Would the soccer mom in her military-grade, sleek black SUV be able to see an excited child bolting across the street to the local convenience store?
Kids These Days
But do American kids even want to work today? Like the esteemedKim K said, nobody wants to work anymore, and that certainly includes modern youth, child labor laws notwithstanding. Regardless of their respective children’s various aptitudes, American parents would be hard-pressed to allow their children out alone to accomplish an errand. It’s almost unfathomable.
For Netflix to get an American version ofOld Enough!up and running, it would first need to shift America’s understanding of its own youth’s potential. In an increasingly specialized society, it can often be easier simply to carry one’s children along for the ride. If parents don’t believe in their own children’s abilities, the kids themselves certainly will not. A catatonic, fear-stricken child on assignment wouldn’t make for very compelling television at the end of the day.
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In the end, kids are kids. It’s likely that American children are given less responsibility than their Japanese counterparts. The differences may be cultural, a function of upbringing, or, more likely, a result of more practical considerations around suburban sprawl and the assuming automobile. If Netflix can find a way to rebootOld Enough!in an American setting, the resulting product might be a powerful mirror of our culture’s obsession with growth, as well as provide an uplifting reminder of our youth’s plucky sticktoitiveness.
