Abstract
NHK's children's television programming began in 1953, in conjunction with the launch of television broadcasting in Japan. As part of NHK's school broadcast, "programming for kindergartens and nursery schools" was introduced in 1956, and Okaasan to Issho (With Mother) began as a program intended for home viewing (hereinafter "young children's programs for home viewing") in 1959. For many years, With Mother remained the sole young children's program for home viewing. However, beginning in 1990, when NHK Educational Television (ETV) adopted block programming and introduced "TV hours for mothers and young children," a variety of new programs emerged one after another.
NHK rarely highlights the names of individual program creators, and children's programs in particular—given their short running times—generally do not include creator credits. However, one creator, NAKAMURA Tetsushi, played a central role in the development of children's programming after 1990.
Nakamura was an early adopter of emerging technologies such as computer graphics and pioneered a range of genres previously unseen in children's programming. As a result, the "TV hours for mothers and young children" block, which had consisted of two hours in the early evening in 1990, was expanded to over five hours across the morning and early evening in April 2026.
