More on Japanese TV

So like, there hasn't been much interesting going on. I have played a lot of FFXI. I wanted to update, though, so have a Bloglight Japan.

Bloglight Japan: TV

In America, Japanese television is known for being crazy and goofy and just plain silly. Most of the time, this is not the case, though there is still certainly a decent chunk of that. Commercials certainly tend to be that way. And, for the most part, Japanese dramas are more along the lines of what Americans would call melodramas (see 1 Litre of Tears for an excellent exception).

If you watch TV in America, you'll notice that certain kinds of shows tend to come on at certain times of day. During the day on weekdays, you have shows devoted to womens' interests, young children, and cooking. Afternoon gives way to cartoons before moving on to news, then you have prime-time dramas, comedic and commentary shows, movies, game shows, and the like. Weekends have cartoons in the morning and news and movies and other stuff later on. Late night/early morning TV on any day of the week becomes music shows and infomercials and some weird stuff they don't put on during the day.

This same sort of schedule generally holds true for Japanese television, though there are some differences. Cooking shows are more spread out, showing up at all times of day. Weekday cartoons don't start until later in the afternoon than American ones (probably because many kids have clubs and/or cram schools to go to). The post-news stuff includes a lot more game/quiz shows than American television. Dramas actually start showing before cartoons on some channels, and even the prime-time ones are less about sci-fi or science or politics than about human interaction... and have a good deal more silly scenes than their American counterparts.

There are also a number of shows intended to help watchers learn English. Of the ones I have caught so far, my favorite is this one show with a pirate theme (that's not the only reason why -- it's just the reason it caught my attention long enough to really watch it). The show has two hosts, an American man and a Japanese woman. The guy's Japanese is excellent, and he does most of the explaining. They both repeat examples, so that Japanese folk can hear it with an American accent, as well as in the Japanese accent they are more likely to be able to emulate.

What makes this show really good, though, is that each episode focuses on a different word which, when combined with other words, has a variety of meanings. They have two Americans with a travelling theme go around to different places and have good, commonplace conversations that use all of the key word's different meanings without seeming contrived. The show's watchers get to see the conversation twice, both with English subs. Between viewings the English is explained so that the viewers can go over it again and understand more of it.

An example of what sort of stuff they cover is as follows:

Keyword: on
Combinations: go on, come on, get on [with it], get on [a bus or something]

It's quality, language-learning TV.

Japanese game/quiz shows are what have given Japanese TV its crazy reputation in the states. And crazy they are. Some of the weird stuff I have gotten to see: guys in velcro suits trying to see how far up a wall they can stick after a trampoline bounce; people paired up with someone they can't see and, given a category (red fruit, christmas, etc.) having to write the same thing as their partner or be electrocuted for a good 30 seconds; and a show in which people in fruit and vegetable costumes were trying to overcome obstacles, with the punishment for failure being a humiliating fall into... flour.

There is also a Japanese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionare. The guy who plays the host is about as much like the American guy as you could find in Japan. They also have some questions on English in there -- stuff like, "Which of these words isn't really from English?" with the answers being four words in katakana, one of which is derived from English words, but not a real English word. The Japanese also say "final answer" in English for this show.

So this morning (New Year's Eve, here), I got up and turned my TV on and logged my FFXI mule (he'd been selling stuff all night) out of the game and turned to actual TV. Joy! Special holiday programming. A musical! I only caught like the last 10 minutes of it, but it was one of a string of short musicals being broadcast from a concert hall belonging to NHK, the TV station I was (and am, actually, as I write this) watching. Very much like American and British musicals.

Now, I am watching a kabuki performance. I can't understand a word they are saying (strike that -- I just caught a word). but I have been curious to see a kabuki performance for a while, so it is good. Kabuki is the Japanese style of play wherein all the actors are guys and everyone has white faces. Well, everyone except the "invisible" guys. They are all dressed in black, and perform duties like changing sets and costumes on stage in front of everyone.

One last note about Japanese TV: in America, everything runs in half-hour blocks. Here, a show can start at any ten-minute mark. Ten and twenty minute shows are not uncommon. I have noticed that most hour-long shows and anime start on the hour or the half-hour, though.

Realizations of the Period

1) The reason alcohol is present at all Japanese parties is because most Japanese people can't loosen up and forget about appearances long enough to just have fun without it.