KOKO GA HEN DA YO NIHONJIN

Beat Takeshi claims that he is trying to help Japanese people to express their opinions by demonstrating the lively way that foreigners discuss things, showing that foreigners can master the Japanese language, and create mutual understanding by getting Japanese and foreigners together. When you see the show however, with its screaming, booing, sensationalism, cheap humour and lowest common denominator appeal, you quickly realise what the shows really is: a freak show. The truth is that he has imported the Jerry Springer style sleazy talk show to Japan and has done absolutely nothing to promote inter-cultural understanding.
There are a few questions you have to ask yourself when you hear the participants claiming they are trying to raise serious issues with the Japanese public: Why does the host, beat Takeshi always wear a funny hat and carry a big plastic hammer to hit guests over the head with? Why is 400 pound former sumo wrestler Konishiki on the show, when he rarely says more than ten words per show if not for his freak show value? Do we really need flashing lights and loud music to have a serious discussion of political and social issues?
The basic idea of the show is that 100 foreigners from all over the world come on the show and discuss things that they don't like about Japan. Sometimes they discuss international issues like Japan's role in the United Nations, or war repartations for WWII, but mostly it's sex, violence, and junk food news. Typical topics include, high school prostitutes, hostess clubs, violence among young people, school bullying, unusual fashion trends, etc.
Even when serious topics are discussed, the discussions have a way of deteriorating into shouting matches, with people calling each other names and attacking people's characters rather than their arguments. To get on the show, you have to be loud and volatile and few of the participants have more than a nodding aquaintance with the topics they are getting so upset about. Clement Adamson, a perpetually angry character from Ghana, when asked if he was really that angry, admitted in a recent interview that, "No [it's not my real personality], but for the show I have to express myself that way to get my point across. So for the mean time I am the hot tempered bad guy."
Although the participants claim that they like living in Japan and are only hoping to raise issues about things that they want changed in order to make Japan a better place, the shows focus on only negative aspects automatically creates discord, creating an us versus them situation, where the Japanese participants are defending themselves against the attacking foreigners. Although on the surface the show seems to be promoting healthy discussion, it is, in fact strengthening divisions between Japanese and foreigners.
The show airs on Wednesday nights at 10pm on TBS.

Shiawase Kazoku Keikaku (Happy Family Plan)

This is a great show to if you want to watch TV but can't speak Japanese. In this show, people are given extremely difficult challenges, like learning to play Beethoven's Ode to Joy on the xylophone in just one week, or tying six cherry stems in knots. If they are successful, they get 1,000,000 yen (a little over $10,000 US). Before the Unme no jikan (moment of destiny), you see a video-taped segment of the person practising his skill and you really start to empathise with the contestents, making the challenge very exciting. Unfortunately, most of the people seem to lose. Apparently there is an American version that is much easier to win.

Junguru TV Tamori

This is another of those shows that you can watch without understanding a word of Japanese. Remember "Stupid Human Tricks" from David Letterman where university students would stuff themselves into dryers and spin round and round or guys would stop fans with their tongues? Jungle TV is "Stupid Human Tricks" taken seriously. A recent episode featured Aikido tricks where you would knock a person over by putting one finger on the back of their leg behind the knee and push on the person's shoulder with the other or when someone grabbed your wrist, you could cause them to fall without making any effort at all. Other tricks included walking in place with one's eyes closed (fifty steps). You don't feel like you've moved at all, but you'll inevitably find yourself a good foot or two ahead of where you started. Tamori, the host (the guy who always wears black sunglasses) is really annoying, but the show is very entertaining. Jungle TV airs on TBS on Tuesday nights at 10:00.

Namidame (Tear-Filled Eyes)

Namidame is a show about crying. In the words of the show's creators, "The tears of the Japanese are fine. Therefore, let's cry together. As much as possible, let's cry, and face front, and work. Namidame is a program which delivers impression to you." Airing at 11:55 every Wednesday night on TV Tokyo (Monday on TV Osaka), this program’s most popular segment is called "Namidame Battle Royale" in which ten young women compete to see who can cry the most in a contest to win one million yen. They keep the women up in a house over a period of one week, give them two test-tubes to collect their tear drops in, and leave them to cry their eyes out. Techniques include insulting one another and slapping each other in the face, drinking a lot of water so that they would be able to cry well, sitting in front of a fan, and claustrophobic girls locking themselves in closets. Every day the girl who is in last place is eliminated and when the competition really starts to heat up, the girls do things like going to the local video store and renting every copy of Titanic so that the other girls will have nothing to cry over. Just one of these girls has enough neuroses to keep a team of psychologists busy for decades and watching them cry over comic books and sappy love songs or playing bizarre emotional game is as disturbing as it is funny.

Electric Boy

Half way between the reality show and the art of developing the meaningless word, the program Electric Boy offers to some actors without a big notoriety the opportunity to be on tv on a program watched by 17 millions viewers. During eleven months, Nasubi lived in direct live in a little room under the eye of cameras. The rules of the "game" is getting dress, eating, and being entertain only by the benefits of contests proposed in magazines.

I dont really understand the purpose of reality show in general but this one... A lonely man trapped in room doing nothing but filling papers to win contest in magazines seems to me a little but unuseful... The worst of it is that the show is famous and popular!!

The strange world of the japanese television

The first time I turned on the TV in Japan I was of course expecting those "hip" tv shows which would make "All my Children" for a great epic play. Or of course these music programs in which pop singers were perfoming a great routine on a sparkling scene with music worthy of the 70'. Or even anchormen hitting guests with a huge balloon hammer. That was what I was excpecting of Japanese television. That was what I saw in France.
But that's only the visible part of the iceberg because japanese television can also be a rash of human torture, questionable jokes, sex and suffering, but it can also be hilarious...

Japanese TV invents the human tetris

Next to Japanese TV, french broadcast seems very boring. Always looking to new concepts, japanese made a great discovery: the human tetris. The rule: a wall is coming on a poor candidate standing in front of a swimming pool. In order to pass through the wall and not fall into the water, he must take the form of the hole drilled in wall. The shapes of the holes or obviously more and more difficult, making the candidate squirming themselves, like the some piece of a Tetris videogame.

10 times funnier than the best gag program!!

Fox in Japan

Yesterday evening i was switching channels and what a surprise when i discovered that i actually have the Fox channel in my apartment. The same tv shows as in the us were broadcasted, something we don't even have in France. In France it is impossible to watch tv shows in the same time as in the us. You have first to buy the rights to broadcast it in french on your channel. We cannot even access the streaming video which a reserved for american audience only. So what a surprised when i could watch the new episode of Prison Break!

But what's funny about it is watching a very trash reality show subtitle in japanese. Indeed I watched Tempatation Island where girls have to seduce boys in order to make them cheat on their wife while the wife are watching the adventure by video and vice versa. The show seems soooo far away from the japanese culture and seing wet naked bodies dancing together and dumb people explaining the "dilemas they faces in the experience" was very paradoxal with the moral ideals the japanese seem to have.

The shows I yet watched were more like food contest or funny talk shows or kawai manga; I haven't see (yet) any sexy more occidental realty trash, but my job here is not done yet...

The young and the restless made in Japan

Today I watched Tv Asahi channel on channel 766. I bumped onto a japanese soap opera: Jikou Keisatsu... It made me think of the young and the restless (famous american soap opera) with the same intense glares and the untenable suspense... But it was punctuated by what seems to be killing funny jokes and cute songs. It was hilarious: the serious of the discussion and then one minute later the babyish dances and songs.

The show is (seems to be) about a man trying to solve mysterious cases which weren't resolve yet. It really seemed that they wanted to copy the american style but still wanted to add their own japanese touch.

Still the show was much more westerner that the other show i saw. It seemed more modern compared to some other manga series. Jikou Keisatsu seems to be a very popular show here in Japan. I will ask some japanese about it to know if it hip or not...

First Impressions

As soon as I got my apartment here in Tokyo my first move was to turn on the tv. Being a huge american tv shows fan, I naturally wanted to check out what was going on there.
When my teacher here in Temple University asked us to do a blog about whatever we wanted about Tokyo I had no hesitation and it was a delight actually HAVING to watch TV for a school task...
So... WOW. First thing: what's all about the drawings and the flashy writtings all over the screen? I assume of course that it is to emphasize some information in commercials and to keep the viewers focus on the talk show or any random broadcast. It looks really messy at the beginning, your eyes are lost in the shambles of the letters/signs and your brain is lost in translation... But step by step it helps understanding what's going on without having to guess.

Everything seems very lifeful, joyful; very animate talks shows or even crazy music shows. Everyone is laughing, shouting, being much more expressive than we can see on the streets. Even the news is kawaii with the sound effects and pink writtings! The big talk shows, very popular here, are about some really shallow subjects but everyone seems the enjoy it. As opposite as in France or in the US they don't try to sound serious, they just try to have fun. Somehow it reflect the youth of the city, walking in Harajuku is like watching a talk show: the colors, the sounds, the atmosphere.