Looks like another blockbuster year for JDM TV

[Mike Oxbigger]

TV hits rock bottom

By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer

January 10, 2004


Shukan Jitsuwa (1/22) exposes Japan's top female celebrities who will strip for the shutterbugs in 2004.

Japan's worst New Year TV shows dropped the bottom of the barrel even lower, groans Shukan Bunshun (1/15).


Finding the worst of Japanese television is a Herculean task, especially because many of the programs shown in this country go a long way toward explaining how the medium became known as the idiot box. Yet it seems, going by what Shukan Bunshun (1/15) has to say, Japanese networks have managed to lower the bar even further again this year.
Critics are furious.

"We had one show where a group of male celebrities were stripped from the waist down and lined up facing away from a group of transsexuals who were asked to vote on which of the celebrities had the nicest ass. Then we had another scene where the man chosen as the guy the transsexuals would 'most like to hump' was 'seduced' by one of them while they were bathing in a hot spring," Takashi Hirata, a writer and former Tokyo Broadcasting System producer, tells Shukan Bunshun. "I lived in the United States for 20 years and never once saw a terrestrial TV program as wretched as that one. I suppose the celebrities thought they were only messing around, but it couldn't have been possible that the network bosses or sponsors didn't check the show's contents."

Some shows literally went to the dogs, like "Asa Made Boso Takeshi Gundan (Takeshi's Army Goes Wild Until Daybreak)." In the program, two-bit comics Rusher Itamae and Rakkyo Ide, clad only in loincloth, pretend to be raped by a pair of Tosa fighting dogs, emitting fake groans and Itamae squealing, "I'm coming, I'm coming."

A later segment had five comedians lower their trousers and get down on all fours as another Tosa fighting dog sniffed their buttocks as the men competed to see which one the dog would choose to "mate."

It wasn't only the guys who were making a show of themselves, either. A group of scantily clad women appeared on TV Asahi's "Shichoritsu Ga*****o Taiketsu (Gutsy Ratings War)" performing what they called "group masturbation." The girls rubbed violin bows between their legs as they let out groans as though they were in the throes of an orgasm - all to the tune of a classical masterpiece.

"Under standards regarding sexual expression drawn up by the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan, TV Asahi should never have been allowed to broadcast these shows," a reporter on the TV beat tells Shukan Bunshun. "But there's no punishments set out for breaches of these standards, so all the networks just do what they like. TV Asahi makes a big deal out of how it focuses on childcare and news, but its late night shows show scant regard for the standards in place."

Writer Chiaki Aso was particularly scathing of the TBS coverage of the much ballyhooed K-1 fight on New Year's Eve between former Yokozuna Akebono and walking billboard Bob Sapp, won easily by the latter in a first round knockout.

"The show had been going for two hours before it got to the fight and when Akebono did finally show up, he couldn't even last three minutes. It was almost fraudulent. Cameras spent too long focused on Akebono's bloated body sprawled across the canvas and putting his kids at the ringside and making them a huge part of the show was almost child abuse," Aso says. "I was almost sick as the cameras showed the horrified look on the children's faces."

Aso, whose five nominations for the New Year's worst programs all came from TBS, also ripped into the network's "Oba-Chan Issen Man En (Granny's 10 Million Yen)."

"In one corner, old women were asked to describe what they hated about their husbands and we were forced to listen to stories of how these old guys would come pawing at them and demanding sex following a night on the booze, or another woman who told of always having to clean up after her husband had spoiled himself," Aso says. "It was unbearable just listening to it."

Food programs, a staple of the Japanese TV diet, also attracted a fair helping of scoffing.

" 'Ganso! Debuya Shinshun Tokuban (Lardasses' New Year Special. The Original!)' had corpulent pair Hidehiko Ishizuka and Papaya Suzuki gallivanting around the country tucking into delicacies like Shimonoseki's torafugu pufferfish, Kobe beef and Hakodate seafood," Aso tells Shukan Bunshun. "All the two fatties would do was hoe into the food, squealing about how good it tasted and made noises like pigs. It was unwatchable!"

[iNteGraz92]

psh, sounds better than 'reality tv' over here.

[aux]

sounds kinda interesting to be honest :o