The Japanese Razor Ramon - and other goodies from J-TV

If you think about Japanese pop-culture, what tends to come to mind? Karaoke? Godzilla? Advanced Technology? An unhealthy obsession with school girls? If I traveled a little further down the line, eventually we would arrive at Crazy TV. America has the conception that Japan is the land of the wacky game show! A land where contestants have to gargle marshmellow fluff while being slapped in the balls by Gila monsters riding Asimo robots to the strains of Holy Diver.. I made the trip out here knowing a bit about game shows, anime, and the Samurai Drama Lone wolf and Cub - but I had heard legends of crazy, indescribable madness that only culture gaps and Japan's unique philosophy of "no half assing" can bring about. Thankfully when I arrived, Japan brought it's A-game on the weird shit front.

I'll start by mentioning that the production values of what little scripted television there is in Japan are awful. If you need a frame of reference, they rank somewhere between the CCtv broadcast of elementary school news and the shittier telenovelas on Univision. The sound mixing is also noticeably bad as well. It's one thing when the microphones are too low on your principal cast, but when the Background music (in a manner I can only deem as unintentional) drowns out the sounds of explosions and gun shots (Unless you're in Panama) you've got a serious problem (on second thought, that was a serious problem when it happened in Panama too).

Scripted drama in Japan is almost always cloned from the worst dregs of North American television. There are Dr. Shows that wish they were ER, Crime Dramas that look entirely lifted from Law and Order (or in some cases New York Undercover. Ewww), and Teen shows Teen Shows Teen Shows! They do borrow a bit from popular teen dramas ala 90210 or Degrassi, but have taken on their own sort of Weird Telenovela style mix of the absurd and the overly dramatic. The resulting mix is actually quite watchable, provided you have a penchant for deriding things you only barely understand...or are an MST3k fan.

But wait, my older readers (Dave, maybe? Not sure if anyone reads this thing yet), you say "but what about the Super hot variety shows?" Well Japan has you covered on all fronts you lucky so and so! Watching Japanese Basic cable for any stretch will land you upon any number of shows where minor Japanese celebrities watch things for your entertainment! If you are fortunate, it is a proper variety show in the vein of the Gong show, where a series of comedians have about 40 seconds to perform their acts finding themselves at the mercy of the panel of celebrity judges - who will make clever comments about the performers and eventually select a winner for the evening. Of these shows, the king is "Bakusho Red Carpet" which spawns many of the more successful comedians who will later judge the program themselves. There are too many pretenders to the throne to try and create a list, but to be honest this class of show is far too rare for my taste. More often, the celebrities are just watching commercials or - even worse - just eating. Now I don't mean like fear factor where they are eating a plate of goat anuses to raise awareness of chicken rabies or something, no it's just normal damn food. They try to play it up as some dramatic action, complete with cliffhanger act breaks after they take their first bite. What inevitably follows after the 8 or so pachinko adds you sit through, is the celebrity saying "Oishi (delicious)" and eating the rest. These shows are - of course - quite popular.

If you stay up a bit later you find yourself in a different strata of strange. Razor Ramon Hard Gay is a professional wrestler, a comedian, and seemingly all around fun guy. If you've seen any professional wrestling in the past 20 or so years, you can probably imagine what he's like in the ring. He uses his androgyny to distract his opponents and basically makes the audience laugh/boo his overall gayness. American wrestling has tried this sort of thing a few times before, with nowhere near the success of HG. He escaped the trappings of being a wrestler and became a highly successful television personality - appearing on many of the aforementioned variety shows, developing his own enormous fan following - culminating in his own late night show that combines Howard Stern style interviews (the usual cavalcade of strippers, porn stars, and other weirdos of a sexual nature) with film/game reviews, skits, and musical performances. Oh and before you ask, yes those reviews are of Porn. Yes the games too. No, it isn't gay porn. Yes, they do show clips during their review. No, the clips aren't censored. All of this, and he's not even really gay - a little bit of news which broke a friend of mine's heart. His show is pretty fun, and in no way hampered by the fact that I only kind of understand what is being said. In all honesty, if any Japanese comedian were going to make it in the states, I think HG would have the best chance. Well, him or this dude.

When I head back to the states, the unsure economy will probably prevent me from having cable for a good while. I'm 100% positive that American television won't be able to compete with the magical nonsense I've witnessed here. Now If you'll excuse me, I have to catch a man in a panda suit play a Neon genesis Evangelion pachinko game while celebrities watch. That last bit is not actually a joke, that is in fact what is currently on.