Very few Japanese people I've talked to know this show or have even heard of it...and I'm from the Lower Mainland of BC. How do *I* know of it, though? Well, a Japanese friend of ours who lives in Burnaby taped us an episode X number of years ago when she visited her home country. My family and I, back in those days, were into Japanese programs...oh, and let's not forget the CM's! There was no internet then, so it wasn't possible to research these programs or know more about them. I kind of miss VHS tapes but I kind of don't. Well, I thought Hai, Akko desu (eng: Hi, I'm Akko or Hi, This Is Akko) was quite entertaining, especially one vignette where the kids meet their new pets, the green iguanas, that frighten the adults. When I was learning Japanese again in 2010, I fell in love with Hai, Akko desu again and have been watching the YouTube uploads. I even shelled out for the extremely rare soundtrack CD. Hai, Akko desu certainly isn't phenomenal, but it's pure entertainment when you're in the right mood. Apparently in the manga on which it was based, Akko had a third child, but it did not appear in the anime. Kazue Komiya, who did Akko's voice, has done lots of overdubbing work on Hollywood movies, including Kathy Bates and Whoopi Goldberg. This show is hardly broadcast anymore even in Japan, but apparently it was popular in the Middle East, as Arabic dubs have shown up on YouTube. And why did so many people rate it 1? It's not horrible at all.
Again, I'm surprised that I'm from Canada and I love this show, but very few Japanese people I've talked to have heard of it. Then again, many people who were born in Canada don't know who Gordon Lightfoot or Bruce Cockburn are.
