The new Tereshibai toy from Konami is creating buzz for its clever blend of digital and analog, culminating in a prize for excellence in innovation at Japan’s first Toy Grand Prix.
Aimed at toddlers, the concept is simple enough: a toy television programmed with animated versions of fairy tales. The cool part however is the voice over, which is created by reading aloud the words on the screen into the accompanying microphone, thus creating an effect like a parent reading a story to a child. And for beginner readers, what better incentive is there than getting to use a microphone?
The press release also notes that Tereshibai aims to give children early confidence in public speaking, a notorious weak point for a stereotypically shy culture. Which brings me to the coolest point: for readers who are unsure of their voice acting abilities, the microphone includes a function to alter one’s voice to match the on screen persona. When kids get tired for the pre-programmed stories, more are available for download, as the microphone can connect to a computer via USB.
The name is a play on “kami shibai,” a traditional form of story telling using giant pictures to portray the scenes of a story (“kami” means paper, whereas “tere” means TV). Tereshibai will be available from this week for a surprisingly reasonable ¥5,229.
