Musica Piccolino is an innovative Japanese edutainment TV show which is designed to help children helps children to visualize and respond physically to musical sound by taking its basic mechanisms and weaving them into a story.
It takes place within the imaginary world of Musicamundo, where Monstoro, a monster suffering from amnesia, performs music. The program follows the efforts of Doctoro Marco and his young disciples asthey embark on a mission to save Monstoro, who symbolizes music itself. Although each episode can be enjoyed on its own, the program is devised as a ‘road movie’ that depicts the personal development of the children.
The programme has a large cast of characters but the main group of Musica Doctors are: Mark Dottore (Kenta Hamano) A Musica Doctor; he plays the trombone. Arina (Saito Arina) She is an apprentice Musica Doctor. She plays guitar. Arvelt (Yasutomo Yamaguchi) apprentice Musica Doctor. He plays keyboard instruments such as piano. Pepe (Sankon Jr.) He is the engineer of the ship. He plays percussion and drums and Narrator (Lily Frankly).
Musica Piccolino (ムジカ・ピッコリーノ) is broadcast by NHK. The pilot episode first aired on 25 August 2012, while the series proper began airing on 6 April 2013. The world of MusicaMundo is designed in a “steampunk” style and the episodes are 10 minutes in length.
Musica Piccolino is a programme that only Japanese whimsy could produce, with its mixture of animation, steampunk, and music from every genre.
