Japanese TV Part II

But wait there’s more!

I’ve seen a few ‘adopt a family’ shows where British, Aborigine, and Indian families come to Japan to be paraded about. Hah they’re wearing their shoes inside! They don’t know how to use chopsticks and they’re eating with their hands! They are different from us and this is funny.

Each foreign family included six or more children, which is impossibly huge for a Japanese family. I was a freaked out watching these broodlings run amuck in a bathhouse, a sushi restaurant, and a hotel so the Japanese watching must have been horrified.

They have the American movie of the week which is always the worst schlock ever dug up. But hey it’s also totally unedited for content so swear words, violence, and nudity galore. Every American movie on TV is the ultra violent action kind, no weepy dramas or comedies since they don’t translate well. Species, Rambo II, Bad Boys II, and Resident Evil (aka BioHazard in Japan) are just a few of the cinematic gems screened here.

No wonder Japanese think Americans are all violent gun owners. No there aren’t gang shootings and drug wars ALL the time in America, on the weekends we take a break to plot revenge and slap up our hoes.

Naturally all week long I look forward to watching these films. Hurray for duel audio so I can switch back and forth between English and Japanese. Some of the voice actors used are hilarious. I swear a woman voiced Martin Lawrence. Dammmmmmmn, that was funny.

There are way too many karaoke shows on for my taste, hell one is too many.

They are quite fond of the picture in picture technology, using it to show a personality’s reaction on a small screen in the corner to what is happening on main screen. This is quite useful because sometimes I’m watching TV and I don’t quite know how to react.

A sick child = Awwww sad face.
CUTE doggy doing a back flip = happy face!
Fat British kids defiling a temple = disgusted face then laughing face.

There are quite a few foreigners who have sold their souls (or at least their dignities) to be on Japanese television. Nerdy white guys answering trivia questions, stoic afroed black men as bodyguards and shifty Hispanic peddlers are just a smattering of the diversity on television.

Sometimes whitey is on TV giving English lessons. These lessons are awful. I don’t know if these white dudes have been in Japan too long and have forgotten how to use English or if the station won’t let them say anything but their retarded monkey lines. It may be the latter seeing how I know personally how stubborn most teachers are about changing their lesson plans even if the grammar is terrible and the dialogue is something nobody would ever say. But going on national television and saying this crap? Speak up and have some dignity stupid white boy.

Here is an English skit from one of the learning shows:
A white woman realtor shows up at the door of a Japanese woman client. The Japanese woman answers the door.

Japaense woman: “I can’t see yoouuuuu.”
White woman leaps out startling Japanese woman and scaring the hell out of me.
White woman: “HERE I AM!”

Later scary white woman is showing a condo to Japanese woman:
Scary white woman: “How about this one? Does it grab you?”
White woman proceeds to fiercely grab Japanese woman’s arm.
Scary white woman: “So does it GRAB you!?”

For the next 10-15 minutes the show’s hosts, a flying alien character, and the people in the skit practice, “does it grab you?” Who the hell says ‘does it grab you’ then put a death grip around somebody’s wrist? The key phrase for the whole half hour show was to learn ‘does it grab you.’ If you meet a Japanese person and they suddenly seize your arm to ask, ‘does it grab you’ don’t blame cultural differences, instead blame television and the sell out white people that let it happen.

After I wrote the first TV post some people told me that the transvestites on TV are called ‘sexual transformers.’ Now whenever I see them I have a modified Transformers theme running through my head. Transformers more than meets the eye. Transformers men in disguise.

Kojima Yoshio is pretty tame in comparison to Hard Gay. Yes that's his name. He is a masked leather man who goes up to people and humps them. Hard Gay is a personality that was popular a while ago but still pops up every once in awhile.

Here is an older video of Hard Gay complete with subtitle goodness. I can pin point my disgust around the time he meets the children on the playground how about you?

Japanese pro wrestling is just as over the top and stupid as American pro wrestling but in Japan they have kept the crude stereotypes that made American pro-wrestling in the 80's fun. Hard Gay is one of these characters whose main move is mock raping his opponent. Bob Sapp is a beefy black man who spews hateful English at everyone saying he is going to “eat” his opponents. I think pro-wrestling is the place where old personalities go when their popularity has been washed up. I wish Japanese pro-wrestling were on more often though because it’s hilarious. Damn pay per view.

Also, there is a lot of anime.