Notable Kenya Boy cast members

The bootleg Korean remake of Kenya Boy must have been the franchise’s first known unofficial instalment. 

The Kenya Boy radio drama seems to be the first known official adaptation of the franchise after the famed Emonogatari graphic novels and the cancelled Kamishibai itself; as it aired from 1953 to 1954. Except for Hideko Kariya as Kate, the cast of such a short lived drama is perhaps unknown even to most Japanese people living today. 

The first onscreen adaptation of the Kenya Boy Mythos is the infamously unavailable 1954 Daiei film; which is where some elements of its more famous animated reimagining came from. The first known actors to play Joe (then called Wataru as in other previous editions and adaptations) and Kate onscreen were ex-teen idols Kiichi Ito and the somewhat better known Michiko Ueda, who is primarily known (nowadays) simply as both an independent pianist and the mother of celebrity entrepreneur Keitaro Tsuda. 

The Toei tv adaptation of Kenya Boy is well known for playing quite fast and loose with the Mythos. What made it quite a successful annual show was that it had the classic quartet of fellow veteran celebs Wataru Yamakawa (aka Nobuo Kutsuna), Midori Seki, the multitalented Hayato Tani (aka Hajime Iwatani), and the late Yukiko Kuwahara (who are all former teen idols) as Joe, Kate, Taru Taru and Jasmine. It also had a fairly popular manga companion with its own unofficial Taiwanese remake. While both are somewhat more faithful to the old graphic novels, they’re otherwise compatible with the show itself for the most part. 

The most famous adaptation of the Kenya Boy Mythos is the (so bad its good) 1984 Toei anime film, which (in an ironic twist) is a magnificent improvement of a soft remake to the 1954 Daiei film. Being both a teen and a young adult at a time when the main Toei Company’s had been churning a ton of (otherwise run of the mill to very good) Metal Heroes Shows (from the 80s to the 90s), former teen idol Junichiro Katagiri and entrepreneurial editor Ryoichi Takayanagi are the most notable pre-PlayStation era portrayers of Joe, whereas the multitalented Tomoyo Harada is the most famous pre-PlayStation portrayer of Kate so far.