Arab News Japan

Popular anime series Sazae-san breaks two Guinness World Record just in time for its 55-year anniversary.

The show’s first award was for being the longest-running animated TV program in the world and the second honored its star Midori Kato for the longest career as a voice actor for the same character on an animated TV series.

Sazae-san has been gracing Japanese TV for 55 years, totaling about 2,500 30-minute shows.

Kato, 85, broke the record for the longest career as a voice actor in 2019, in honor of the show’s 50^th anniversary.

Upon receiving the award for the second time this year, Kato said: “I hope that even your grandchildren will continue to watch.”

The cartoon has a very calm and predictable nature, in which it has never faced any controversies and has maintained a steady output of simple and timeless humor.

Sazae-san doesn’t age, and neither does the environment around the characters. They still use rotary telephones and have retro TV sets, at most from the late 80s.

The show’s 55th anniversary will be celebrated on Fuji TV by showing “masterpiece” segments from 6:50 to 7:00 p.m. each night from Nov. 25-29 and a one-hour special on Dec. 1.