おっぱいの管 (Boob Tube)
Click to viewThings I've managed to learn about Japanese TV:
- The same 15-20 people show up on every channel, depriving many people of shine.
- For some reason a lot of shows feature captions. Still not quite sure why some feel the need to plaster in enormous text something I just heard on screen.
- There are an inordinate amount of shows where celebrities, pseudo-celebrities, and people with no real reason for being on TV at all eat a bunch of food and declare that it's amazing. It usually goes something like this: eat food, DRAMATIC PAUSE, exclaim "Umai!" while over exaggerating how good the food is. And everyone on the show does the same. Exact. Thing.
- Non variety programs, eating shows, or newscasts are generally known as doramas (dramas), which confused me a lot up until...a couple of weeks ago. Calling 24 or Supernatural dramas had never really occurred to me before.
- Not sure why, but Japanese TV shows almost always look low budget to me. Could possibly be due to a combination of things, including the way they're filmed and the style of acting.
- Variety shows will regularly bring on what's called tarento (talent). Talent is a bit of a misnomer though as I have yet to see talent with actual talent. They're usually either foreigners who can speak Japanse well enough to be on TV (or terribly enough to be on TV and made fun of) or people who are just attractive.
- Japanese game shows really are as twisted as that one episode of The Simpsons made them out to be.