TODDLERS ON A MISSION
Perhaps the best Japanese entertainment import since anime is the new-to-Netflix docuseries Old Enough! Curated from a series airing in Japan since 1991, Old Enough! features brief episodes in which brave parents task their eager (and sometimes unwilling) 2- to 5-year-olds with missions such as picking up items from the fish market or dropping off dry cleaning. While Americans may balk at the mere thought of sending a solo toddler out onto the streets, note that the kids on screen are followed around by a sizable camera crew, and plenty of helpful citizens and shopkeepers happily step in. Humorous and heartwarming, Old Enough! is low-key, wholesome TV we all could use more of. (CHEY SCOTT)
PORK BARREL POLITICS
The first act of Weird West, the top-down action video game set in a supernatural-infused wild, wild West, is normal enough. You're a bounty hunter lady trying to track down your kidnapped husband from cannibal cultists, kicking explosive barrels at any cattle rustler or flesh-eating zombie who stands in your way. But a couple hours in, I'd rescued my husband, and the bounty hunter lady's story is over. That's when it restarts with you as a new character — this time as some poor sap who got turned into a pig man by a witch. And the previously welcoming saloons of the West don't serve your kind in here, ya hear. It's hard out here for a pig. (DANIEL WALTERS)
THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST
Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online May 6:
ARCADE FIRE, WE. After missteps in dance rock and sanctimonious theme albums, it sounds like WE might be Arcade Fire's return to sweetly overly sincere and majestic indie rock (fingers crossed).
SHARON VAN ETTEN, WE'VE BEEN GOING ABOUT THINGS ALL WRONG. In an effort to get people to listen to the album as a whole, SVE isn't releasing any songs early. Since she's arguably the best singer/songwriter of the past dozen years, that's perfectly acceptable.
ALISON WONDERLAND, LONER. Anything but a laptop DJ, Alison Wonderland stands out from the bro-heavy EDM pack with catchy, emotive songs that incorporate her own singing and musicianship. (SETH SOMMERFELD)
