NHK World radio has just broadcast an enormously popular Japanese children’s book series .. in 21 languages. The English translation was done by Sako Ikegami.

The broadcast is available here (Real Player needed).

AND: NHK is asking for listener feedback on “what happens next”… so if anyone’s feeling creative…

The “On a Stormy Night” [Arashi no Yoru ni] series by Yuichi Kimura starts with a goat and a wolf who meet inside a dark shed on the night of a terrible storm. “The series started out slowly”, according to Sako Ikegami, “but eventually snowballed into one of the biggest children’s bestsellers in recent years, especially after the sixth installment which happened to coincide with emotional aftermath of 9/11. It’s spawned a full-length anime film, a seventh book, and a novel.”

[The first two books were previously released with a different English translation (some Japundit readers may have seen it) which has been repealed because of inaccuracies in the text. (Most grievous was specifying the gender of the goat as a "he" - since that tended to limit reader perception of the relationship), according to Sako Ikegami in a recent email.]