「英語リーディング筋トレ―これで英字新聞も怖くない！」　第8記事

情報源：The Japan Times Online 2004年12月8日

'Sesame Street' making waves -- in Japanese
（セサミストリート --- 日本語版でもブームを起こす）

By KANAKO TAKAHARA
Staff writer

Japan Timesの正式な「使用権」を得て掲載されています。

Rena Mizushiro sits in a cramped position with other puppeteers as she works her character, Teena, to sing in a scene about Elmo's birthday in "Sesame Street."

Stretching her strained arms and legs, Mizushiro then watches a nearby monitor while the scene is replayed for a check-up.

"The expression of the puppet changes with a slight difference of action," Mizushiro says. "I am starting to create unique gestures for my character."

Mizushiro, a former actress at the Takarazuka all-women's theater troupe, is one of the puppeteers in the new Japanese version of America's most popular kids program, "Sesame Street."

NHK stopped broadcasting the American version of "Sesame Street" in April after more than 30 years on the air. The Japanese version kicked off in October.

Japanese "Sesame Street" is currently being aired every Sunday at 9 a.m. on TV Tokyo network. Almost all of the procedures have been created by Japanese staff, and the program is broadcast mostly in their native tongue, except for brief "English lesson" corners.

Japan is just one of more than 20 nations worldwide that broadcast a localized version of "Sesame Street." All of them are produced under licensing agreements with Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit organization in the United States that manages all rights concerning the program and its characters.

The original "Sesame Street" focuses on basic education for preschoolers, such as learning the alphabet, but the Japanese version takes up a wide range of topics, including ethics, how to interact with friends and environmental issues, according to TV Tokyo officials.

Some of the program's goals include encouraging children to be considerate toward others, to be honest with other people and to think logically, they say.

The Japanese version also features three new characters: Teena, Mojabo and Pierre. Teena is a girl who likes to sing. Green-furred Mojabo is a bossy character who likes to exercise. Narrator Pierre is a light-blue frog whose partner, Arthur, talks in the Kansai dialect.

Director Tsukuru Matsuki says the outcome of the program largely relies on the quality of the puppetry, which requires special training in how to synchronize one's voice with the movement of the puppet's lips.

Puppeteers also must get used to watching their every move on a nearby monitor. It's the only way they can see how the puppets are reacting, he said.

"I was thrown in despair after the first training session," Matsuki said. "None of the puppets looked alive."

Now the puppeteers can make the puppets perform ad-lib acts during shooting, Matsuki said.

Kevin Clash, a well-known Sesame Street puppeteer who plays Elmo in the U.S. version, attended the audition for the Japanese puppeteers and trained them to acquire his skills.

Two months after its first broadcast, however, the Japanese version is suffering from low ratings.

Viewer ratings for NHK's "Sesame Street" averaged 1.3 percent between March 2003 and this March. The new version has drawn a rating of about 1.5 percent, TV Tokyo officials say.

Viewers are complaining about the differences in the characters' voices compared with the NHK-aired version and about the exclusive use of Japanese.

"Sesame Street" producer Yoshikazu Beniya said it is difficult to create new stories for a program that already has established a unique set of values over 35 years.

"Even when we think we have come up with a good script, we are told (by Sesame Workshop in the U.S.) to rewrite it because it is 'not suitable' for a 'Sesame Street' program from their viewpoint," said Beniya. Under the arrangement allowing production of the Japanese version, every script must be approved by Sesame Workshop.

Beniya and his scriptwriters once wrote a story about a child who trips during a race at a school sports festival and is left behind by other kids -- a scenario that is probably familiar to many Japanese viewers, he says.

The script was rejected because Sesame Workshop insisted the other kids should have helped him up in such a situation. But Beniya says he is not discouraged.

"These kind of exchanges are necessary so that (the U.S. side) will begin to understand the customs in Japan," he said. "That is what creating Japan's 'Sesame Street' is all about."