Japanese TV Programs to Watch Around New Years

If you are not in the mood for braving the cold and the crazy crowds on the night of the 31st you might want to check out these TV programs on the New Year’s Eve night as well as the following day/morning.

If you haven’t watched it before, 紅白歌合戦(Kouhaku Uta Gassen), is a singing competition on the national public television (NHK)  and it is broadcast both on television and radio. It has actually been on the air since 1950s. It is basically a singing competition between two teams – red team which is made up of female singers and the white team which is made up of male singers. In fact the beginning of the name of the program, 紅白, stands for red-white.  To be invited to sing at the competition is considered an honor and the teams are typically made up of singers of all backgrounds from J-Pop to Enka (the traditional Japanese folk songs). Every year NHK puts together a selection committee which does the refereeing and the invitation process for the artists is based on sales in the last year as well as their fit to the theme for that year. The theme is in turn determined by a survey on various demographics so you can see that it is a pretty big deal. This year 紅白 will start on New Year’s Eve at 7:15pm and go on until 11:45pm on BShi, BS2 and Radio 1. You can take a look at the homepage here.

Another show I really like watching is さすけ/佐助(Sasuke). さすけ is the name of a famous Ninja from Japanese history and the show is about competitors trying to survive a gauntlet of challenges. This one you might have seen in other countries under a different name (for example in the US and Turkey they show it under the name Ninja Warrior). However, unlike the way they show it in other  countries, which is as a season of 30 minute long episodes, the way they show it here is as one long episode per season. There is a pretty dedicated fan base here as far as I can tell and there is even a museum in Odaiba called Muscle-Park where people can try some of the challenges from the show. Some of the competitors prepare for months, building smaller versions of the gauntlet at their homes. The 24th iteration of the show will take place on January  1st at 5:45 pm and last until 11:24 (no idea why not 11:30 or 11:15) on TBS.  You can find more information here and especially here.

The song that just got stuck in my head

J-Pop, Japanese Pop Music, is pretty popular in Anime circles as well as in a lot of Asian countries and one can try to keep up with all the new Anime songs or try to follow the Japanese Billboard charts online but I think nothing quite matches the exposure one gets from living in Japan. One not only can hear about the chart topping songs online or on TV but you might also hear something completely unexpectedly and fall in love with it instantly. Case in point – the song that plays as the credits roll for 婚カツ – a new, very popular Japanese TV drama that I started watching from the first episode (it’s on the 5th episode as of now). I finally found a video of the credits with English subtitles so I finally get the song. The lyrics are pretty cute and the song has a nice feeling to it (though granted, reading the lyrics does change the perspective one would have about the content when oblivious to the language.) The song also goes really well with the subject matter of the series. I read that the song itself is actually a “re-interpretation”/cover of a song of the same name - “Wedding Bell”. This new version is by the Japanese duo, Puffy and I just can’t get it out of my head….

Catching Superbowl XLIII in Tokyo

For all those expats wanting to catch the big game - NHK BS1 will be showing it live next Monday, starting at 8:10 AM with the kickoff happening at 8:20 AM. Gaora will be showing it Monday night/Tuesday morning at 12:00 AM  and a few times again later in the week. I just thought I should drop a line here so people can find the information seeing that NHK does not seem to offer this information in English and all ;)

p.s. In case it is not obvious the image is not made by me and I am using it with the assumption that it is OK for a not-for-profit blog like this to use it. If you are the copyright owner drop me a line and I will remove it immediately.

Watching NFL games in Japan

I have been a big fan of NFL for the last two years - way too late for someone who lived in Pittsburgh for the last ten... I guess in order to make up for the time I have lost, i.e. the first eight years, I have started to follow the Steelers pretty religiously. This, of course, created a problem when moving out from Pittsburgh. Thankfully Japan is one of the few countries in the world really interested in (and thus following) the NFL...

NFL is mainly covered by a channel named Gaora in Japan. This is available through cable (JCN is what I use) and as I understand it also through satellite. They keep an updated schedule of games to be broadcasted online in English. All of the post-season games are shown as well as select games during the season. They are not tied to a specific network in the USA so games from CBS, FOX, etc. are shown. The funny thing is that the logos of the networks originally broadcasting the games are usually on the screen as well making it almost seem like someone patched a satellite signal and you are watching pirated video (which is of course not true :P). The non-live games take an hour less than the games as they were originally broadcast since there are very few ads during a program in Japan and all the breaks just get skipped. For live games they still do not have ads but instead divert to a studio where they discuss the last play or they advertise the upcoming games (so in a way, their own ad I guess). Also, games are simulcast in both the original language (i.e. English) and with Japanese commentating.

Unfortunately Gaora does not seem to be doing their broadcasts in High Definition. However, sometimes NHK1 which is available as over-the-air digital broadcast shows games (I think select Sunday games broadcast on Monday) in HD.