TV shows!
Admittedly, I very much miss being able to watch American shows (apparently because I'm not in the US, websites like hulu.com don't work for me here... ) and being able to understand exactly what's going on in conversation, watching Japanese shows has been a very interesting experience.
The mix of shows seems to be like this (also.. basing this off of having only 7 basic cable channels available):
Game shows/Japanese-equivalent "reality" TV 60%
Talk shows 20%
Dramas 15%
Documentary 4%
News 1%
That being said, I've watched many shows with randomness.
Lots of them are about trivia or kanji knowledge (lol!). Though my knowledge of the Japanese language in practical use is very limited, I still managed to find a lot of the shows quite entertaining. The (male) TV personalities generally like to smack each other upside the head a lot.. (physical comedy I can always appreciate).
But the point of this entry is one of the dramas I've come to follow.
学校じゃ教えられない! Gakkou Ja Oshierarenai! Most non-awkwardly, "You won't learn it in school!"
It's about 5 guys that go to an all-girls private high school. They allow the 5 guys due to declining enrollment and want to test how having boys at the school will effect academic life. One of the teachers is a cute and fresh-faced, optimistic, Disney enthusiast that starts up a social dance club as a way to teach the boys how to interact with girls, and teach them about love. Five other girls (who are kind of outcasts at the school) become the 5 boys' corresponding partners.
That in itself is not so interesting, but the interactions between the characters is very entertaining XD
One of the characters is at the girls' school because he wants to go in hopes of achieving a harem-like high school experience; basically he's a self-proclaimed horn-dog (at some point the teacher offers the boys anything if they do well at the dance competition, which he requests that she wear a V-string thong).
The main character is this guy's best friend, and only goes because he wants to be near his friend. We later find out he has a massive crush on his said best friend, but he keeps it a secret and the girl that's his dance partner figures it out.
This girl is the main girl in the story (besides the teacher), and she's an outcast because some upperclassman girl in the student government harasses her; the student government girl apparently had, and still has, a crush on the main girl starting since before they went to high school together and harasses now her out of jealousy.
This show is surprisingly ... open (?) about "issues".
In the first episode we find out that the main guy has a crush on his best friend.
One of the 5 boys says he's never jacked off before and his friends give him advice LOL I couldn't stop rolling off my seat.
On top of this, he could only do it when he attached a picture of the girl he liked to one of the "men's magazine's" picture, and then the school found out about it and called him a pervert, after which the very loud harem-loving boy says they're all perverts but at least his friend used a picture of the girl he liked instead of the random anonymous models in the magazine.
The teacher actually DOES put on the V-string (they call it a T-back? haha).
One of the 5 girls gets pregnant with some unknown character.
Another of the 5 girls wants her partner in the dance club to help her kill herself because she's a victim of bullying from other girls and a former coach (not an uncommon thing in Japan actually; very scary social pecking order :0 ); the boy who also wants to kill his abusive, lowlife sister.
The boys get their clothes stolen by the student government who doesn't want them there, so that the boys end up running through the school naked o_0
On top of all this, the social dance teacher is very understanding and tells these students that they're not horrible or weird people, and other mushy stuff that they're feeling with their hearts and stuff like that.
Hopefully someday it'll get subtitled so I can find out the details of what they're saying and clear up confusions I had with the story ~_~
Though there are some serious moments I see it mostly as a comedy.. and man... it's fricken funny. XD New episode Tuesday night! Yay!
The mix of shows seems to be like this (also.. basing this off of having only 7 basic cable channels available):
Game shows/Japanese-equivalent "reality" TV 60%
Talk shows 20%
Dramas 15%
Documentary 4%
News 1%
That being said, I've watched many shows with randomness.
Lots of them are about trivia or kanji knowledge (lol!). Though my knowledge of the Japanese language in practical use is very limited, I still managed to find a lot of the shows quite entertaining. The (male) TV personalities generally like to smack each other upside the head a lot.. (physical comedy I can always appreciate).
But the point of this entry is one of the dramas I've come to follow.
学校じゃ教えられない! Gakkou Ja Oshierarenai! Most non-awkwardly, "You won't learn it in school!"
It's about 5 guys that go to an all-girls private high school. They allow the 5 guys due to declining enrollment and want to test how having boys at the school will effect academic life. One of the teachers is a cute and fresh-faced, optimistic, Disney enthusiast that starts up a social dance club as a way to teach the boys how to interact with girls, and teach them about love. Five other girls (who are kind of outcasts at the school) become the 5 boys' corresponding partners.
That in itself is not so interesting, but the interactions between the characters is very entertaining XD
One of the characters is at the girls' school because he wants to go in hopes of achieving a harem-like high school experience; basically he's a self-proclaimed horn-dog (at some point the teacher offers the boys anything if they do well at the dance competition, which he requests that she wear a V-string thong).
The main character is this guy's best friend, and only goes because he wants to be near his friend. We later find out he has a massive crush on his said best friend, but he keeps it a secret and the girl that's his dance partner figures it out.
This girl is the main girl in the story (besides the teacher), and she's an outcast because some upperclassman girl in the student government harasses her; the student government girl apparently had, and still has, a crush on the main girl starting since before they went to high school together and harasses now her out of jealousy.
This show is surprisingly ... open (?) about "issues".
In the first episode we find out that the main guy has a crush on his best friend.
One of the 5 boys says he's never jacked off before and his friends give him advice LOL I couldn't stop rolling off my seat.
On top of this, he could only do it when he attached a picture of the girl he liked to one of the "men's magazine's" picture, and then the school found out about it and called him a pervert, after which the very loud harem-loving boy says they're all perverts but at least his friend used a picture of the girl he liked instead of the random anonymous models in the magazine.
The teacher actually DOES put on the V-string (they call it a T-back? haha).
One of the 5 girls gets pregnant with some unknown character.
Another of the 5 girls wants her partner in the dance club to help her kill herself because she's a victim of bullying from other girls and a former coach (not an uncommon thing in Japan actually; very scary social pecking order :0 ); the boy who also wants to kill his abusive, lowlife sister.
The boys get their clothes stolen by the student government who doesn't want them there, so that the boys end up running through the school naked o_0
On top of all this, the social dance teacher is very understanding and tells these students that they're not horrible or weird people, and other mushy stuff that they're feeling with their hearts and stuff like that.
Hopefully someday it'll get subtitled so I can find out the details of what they're saying and clear up confusions I had with the story ~_~
Though there are some serious moments I see it mostly as a comedy.. and man... it's fricken funny. XD New episode Tuesday night! Yay!