The anime production company TMS Entertainment has announced on Thursday that it will launch Smile-Touch, the first anime-viewing, touch-screen tablet for use in pediatric care. The 1.6-kilogram (about 3.5-pound) portable device contains four 12-minute animated educational shorts to prepare young children for various kinds of medical examinations and treatments such as X-rays, intravenous drips, inhalers, and blood samples. The 12-inch touch screen can also show four 18-minute animated shorts to teach families on how to deal with fevers, infant diarrhea or vomiting, vaccinations, and accident prevention.

When the young patient needs to be distracted from potentially stressful examinations or treatments, the Smile-Touch holds about 11 hours of traditional animated entertainment such as Soreike! Anpanman, Hello Kitty, and Thomas & Friends. It also includes the Ehon no Yomi Kikase (Read-Aloud Picture Book) videos, the Soreike! Anpanman Zukan children's reference book videos, and the Detective Conan (Case Closed) no Konomo Hyakka-Jiten children's encyclopedia.

TMS Entertainment is now taking orders for the Smile-Touch, and it will begin renting the device to medical institutions in Japan on September 23. Prototypes has already been put into trials in 23 hospital and clinics throughout Japan. 74.2% of health care providers surveyed in the trials said the devices were "effective" or "extremely effective," and 90.8% said they were "good" or "very good."