u&i S1

This is a sweet little series from NHK for School introducing kids to differences in an empathetic way. Most episodes revolve around a "normal" kid ("Ai") learning about the differences in the life of a child ("Yuu") with a disability such as a severe allergy, but there are also episodes touching on cultural differences, gender stereotypes, menstrual stigma, etc. Many episodes include elements such as joys experienced by Yuu (e.g. games played by children at a school for the blind, advantages of signed language over spoken) or how one can be supportive (e.g. asking if a disabled person needs help without assuming they do or ignoring them). The issues in each episode are handled in a sensitive way, and the "Ai" characters realistically have different reactions, ranging from quick sympathy to being stubbornly jealous that "Yuu" seems to be cheating by using a tablet to take tests.

The show is marked as being for all elementary schoolers; my read is that the main target audience is probably closer to the middle of that range. Personally, I found it at just the right level to be interesting as an adult but relatively simple to follow.

There's puppets and singing, the puppets tend to repeat/rephrase what the human characters are saying, and for the most part, vocabulary is fairly simple. However, the speech is at a natural and sometimes quick pace, there are some rarer words are used (mainly to explain the issue of the episode), and two of the puppet characters have light accents/dialects. Each episode has a very detailed summary (with kanji) and subtitles (almost entirely kana) as well.