Hello from the J-List crew, this time in beautiful Guam, a small island three hours from Japan, and a U.S. possession that bills itself as “where America starts her day” (since it’s on the other side of the international date line from the rest of the U.S.). So far the J-List staff has had a lot of fun, eating at Hard Rock and riding in submarines and doing plenty of shopping, generally enjoying our time as tourists here. To be honest, the weather’s been less than cooperative, with sudden squalls interrupting our company vacation, but we’re having fun nevertheless.
Reality TV has been around for a few years in the U.S., but the idea has been a popular facet of Japanese television for some time. The genre was perfected by the popular show Denpa Shonen (lit. “radio wave boy”), which creates weekly serials such as following two commedians as they hitchhike from the bottom of Africa to the top of Scandanavia, or showing the adventures of two other Japanese men determined to pedal a swan boat around the Japanese islands. A Japanese entertainer named Nasubi spent more than a year in a tiny apartment in Tokyo completely in the buff, trying to prove if a man could live only on things he won in contests. Of course it’s Japan, so it’s assumed that everything shown is “yarase” or scripted TV, a big problem here — but if the producers didn’t arrange for Nasubi to win something this week, he’d starve and die, and ratings would plunge. The most recent reality television in Japan pits thrifty individuals against each other, trying to see who can live for one month on $100 or less. You’d be surprised how cheaply these people can eat, when they set their minds to it.
One popular Japanese show that’s above using faked stories is the venerable TV Champion, which features talented contestants competing to make outrageously beautiful works of art, folding extravagant origami creations, crafting beautiful cakes that resemble famous cathedrals around the world, or renovating old houses on ridiculously low budgets. It’s always a joy to see what the creators of this show will bring us next. Japanese chefs making amazing works of art out of bread? 1001 creations involving strawberries? Testing archaic knowledge of kanji or Japanese history?
We’ve got tons of amazing items on the site for you now, from useful things for your kitchen to our amazing 2005 Japanese calendars to delicious snacks, DVDs, manga and more. We have so many amazing items on J-List, it can be hard to take it all in. In order to just view items updated in the last 3 days, you can use our handy “three day link”, here: http://www.jbox.com/UPDATES/3
