Primetime

In high school a friend of mine once let me borrow a video tape of Japanese TV and game shows. Specifically I remember watching episodes of Takeshi's Castle. For those who don’t know, the show begins with about 100 contestants that gradually become eliminated through physically demanding obstacles as they try to reach and defeat the comedian Beat Takeshi in his castle. Although untranslated, I was immediately fascinated with:

1. the shows strange concept

2. the complete disregard for human safety (at least by american standards).

3. the boundless energy, confidence and happy-go-lucky attitude of the contestants despite the bone-breaking obstacles they faced and lawsuit-riddled plunges they took.

Although it’s been 25 years since it aired, I was hoping for the same caliber of shows when I came to Japan. Since being here I have seen a few shows that were somewhat interesting, but nothing especially noteworthy….until last night.

I don’t actually know the name of the show, but what simply caught my attention at first was the fact that there were four men and one woman wearing togas and fake beards…well the woman wasn’t wearing a beard…but had she actually worn one I don’t think he show could have gotten any more ludicrous.

My best guess is that they were imitating roman/greek gods talking about humans. As they spoke each person had a belief, rule, or hypothesis they thought about humans. They then staged intricate and highly unscientific experiments to determine if the hypothesis was true. If it held true for a majority of the people, a woman dressed as an angel would take a large quill pen and would scribe the rule in a gigantic book. If not, then the belief suggested would simply be dismissed.

For example, the first rule they tested was:

Women with body odor have bad luck

To prove this theory they took 20 women to a parking lot and had them choose between button A or button B. If they pressed button B, it was good luck because nothing happened. if they pressed button A they got sprayed with a blast from a fire hose and knocked back onto an air mattress. This was considered bad luck.

In the end, eight women were deemed unlucky by the fire hose god and were lined up in front of a professional I don’t know what its called…odor-ologist?...to have their armpits clinically sniffed and determined if the women had body odor or not. Out of the eight, five women were designated odorless, while three were deemed odiferous with additional qualifiers such as “smells strongly like soil” and ‘smells like mildew.’ Since only three of the eight women had body odor the rule was not entered into the book.

Other rules offered up and tested…

Men who use the words positive to describe themselves are not funny.

Eight out of ten men who put a variation of ‘positive’ as part of their creed on a survey were able to make a panel of observers laugh within a minute. Not entered into the book of rules.

Hairy men have a stronger desire to procreate.

I forget the exact details, but this was tested by having several women lie to their boyfriends and tell

them they were pregnant. Their reactions were documented. They found that more boyfriends with chest hair (or a deep voice?) stayed calmer than boyfriends without so this was entered into the book of rules. I do hope the same holds true when the girlfriends have to admit they were lying.

Wearing the same glasses over several years makes you prone to becoming possessed.

A group of women who had been wearing glasses for a long time were taken to a house claimed to be haunted. Though several of them were scared throughout the hours they spent in the dark, Only three out of eight claimed to have any uncontrollable conditions. Not entered into the book of rules.

As bizarre as the experiments sound, what made it work were the discussions the hosts had when they presented their beliefs. There was not a trace of irony or sarcasm when they were explaining their absurd beliefs, or in the responses from the other hosts. No wry smile to indicate some sort of joke. Had my friend not been translating, I would have thought that they were having a heavy philosophical discussion; contemplating the human condition, the Poetics, or existentialism.

Though the more I think about it, who am I to say they weren't.