Caught this commercial for the Intel Centrino 2 on TV last night.

27-year-old Japanese ex-porn (AV) actress Nao Oikawa (she retired from boinking in front of cameras in 2004) seems to have completed the move from blue movies to mainstream pop idol via a girl group named G3 Princess, which also includes Yumi Sugimoto and Rina Aizawa. Ms. Oikawa is the one on the right in the following video.

For a peek at a censored but very not-safe-for-work XXX video that spotlights some of Ms. Oikawa’s more salacious talents, click here.

I caught this amazingly talented guy on an NHK special yesterday and was totally blown away. Get ready to hear the ukelele as you probably have never heard it before.

My wife is hooked on Kandora, short for Kankoku dorama or South Korean soap operas, and it seems every time I walk through the living room she’s got another one on the TV.

When I ask her what’s so interesting about the shows, she gets very animated. “Oh, they’re nothing like Japanese dramas,” she says. “They’re more intense, and the stories are much more involved and interesting. The characters really change and grow.”

It struck me that she sounded like me back in the 80s, describing why Japanese animation was so superior to whatever else was on TV back then for people to watch (I actually can’t remember at this point).

It seems to me that the human brain is wired to appreciate things that are fresh and new, and when a concept comes along that is totally unique, people are drawn to it irresistibly, which goes a long way towards explaining the revolution that Japanese animation has brought to the world over the past 20 years. My wife is finding that Korean series like Time Between Dog and Wolf, Spring Waltz and Something Happened in Bali are offering her a higher level of drama and depth, sometimes moving her to tears with their (often sad) stories.

The Japanese soaps, with their lighter and more formulaic stories that you can usually guess ahead of time, don’t seem to be doing it for her.

If you have ever wondered what the notorious American-turned-Japanese (but still very much ugly gaijin) Debito Arudo actually looks like and sounds like, wonder no more for here he is, doing what he does best. . . bitching about Japan.

Via Matt at Occidentalism.

Caught the Japan-U.S. women’s soccer game yesterday, which the U.S. won 4-2.

The game was pretty good and both teams should be congratulated for giving their all and fighting it out right up until the final whistle.

Less than stellar, however, was the Japanese coverage both during the game and in the aftermath. As very often happens when Japan is beaten in an international sporting event, commentators spent most of their time serving up the same old tired litany of excuses of why the Japanese side fell to defeat.

Here are the ones I can remember off hand.

• The other team was physically bigger and stronger.
• The bad condition of the pitch.
• The heat and humidity.
• A schedule that had the Japanese team play two games with little rest.

What they always seem to forget is that, except for the first point, both teams are playing under the same conditions.

One particularly humorous remark I heard during the game was by one of the color commentators on the broadcast after the Japanese side went off side for about the fourth time in a row, “The fact that they keep jumping offside is testimony to the speed and agility of the Japanese team.”

Nippon Television Network Corp. (NTV) has gotten into hot water for inflating the number of plates of food downed by “a celebrity known for her enormous appetite” during an NTV program.

According to NTV, the woman devoured “only” 39 plates of food, though it was reported on the program that she had eaten 48.

“We failed to accurately count the number of plates, and partially used an inappropriate method to make the segment,” the TV station said in an apology during the program on Friday.

NTV’s general public relations department explained, “We were vague about how we counted the plates and dishes, for instance, counting one plate with four pieces of the same dish as four dishes.”

On Monday, NTV gave severe warnings to Hisao Adachi, head of the news bureau, and other program staff, and terminated a contract with a production company in charge of shooting and making the problem segment.

Celebrity gluttons are really popular in Japan, which is why I guess something like this is being treated so seriously.

Sent in by Colin Fletcher, who says:

Eight Year old Japanese guitar playing phenom Yuto Miyazawa was on Conan O’Brien last night and brought the house down with Crossroads by Eric Clapton. He completely butchered the lyrics, which are in some strange English Japanese gibberish, but his shredding is impressive nevertheless.

A ceremony was held today to mark the beginning of construction work of the 610-meter Tokyo Sky Tree, which is scheduled for completion in 2012.

Tokyo Sky Tree will commence operation in the spring of 2012. NHK and the five major commercial broadcasters are currently using the 333-meter-tall Tokyo Tower to transmit both analogue and digital TV signals. But analogue broadcasting will be terminated by July 2011. In view of the change, the six broadcasters have drawn up plans for the new tower to be tall enough to transmit digital signals unobstructed by high-rise buildings.

News about the following TV commercial for a company named EMOBILE has gotten Obama supporters the world over up in arms.

The voice over has the monkey giving in a speech in which he promises that EMOBILE is committed to change. Obama supporters claim that the monkey is a racist reference to Barack Obama.

Word is that the BBC has purchased the rights to broadcast the Japanese TV show Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Deshita, which starts the Tunnels comedy duo of Kinashi Noritake and Ishibashi Takaaki.

The BBC is understood to have produced 11 episodes of the show. But, like other foreign media buyers who have dabbled in Japanese television concepts, it has not bought the rights to everything on the Tunnelsshow. Japanese television remains a preserve of sexism, ageism, exploitation and bullying that continue to astonish most foreigners exposed to it. “Major foreign TV broadcasters rarely use programmes produced in Japan in their entirety,” a Fuji TV official admits.

The BBC’s deal comes at a time when even long-term enthusiasts of Japanese television agree that standards are daily plumbing new depths. “Just when you think Japanese television is not going to go any sicker or lower,” says W. M. Penn, a television critic for the Yomiuri newspaper, “it goes one sicker and lower.”

But after years of insularity and pure domestic focus, Fuji Television is starting to realise the international commercial value that its vast menu of lowbrow entertainment now commands. In 2004 it sold a cooking contest idea to the US that became marketed as the Iron Chef.

The BBC was forced on to the defensive last year to deny reports that it planned to dumb down its shows after discovering that lower-income families were not tuning in. BBC research allegedly showed that high earners were more likely to watch its channels, while its staff felt that programmes such as Panorama were “too serious”.

Thanks to Mr. Pink.

A recent California Supreme Court ruling paved the way for gay marriage in the state. Many news outlets, including the BBC, are covering perhaps the most famous person to take advantage of the opportunity, Japanese-American actor George Takei, best known as Sulu from Star Trek. He obtained a marriage certificate and plans to wed his partner of 20-years, Brad Altman, in September. His official and unofficial biographies show a strong connection to his Japanese roots including speaking Japanese, studying at (Edward’s alma mater) Sophia University in Tokyo, and being involved in many Japanese organizations.  He was also one of the many Japanese and Japanese-Americans interned in the U.S. during WWII.

George is former president of Friends of Little Tokyo Arts, an organization that encourages and supports artists. In the international arena, George was appointed by President Clinton to the board of the Japan-United States Friendship Commission, where he served two terms.  He is a member of the board of directors of the U.S.-Japan Bridging Foundation. The Government of Japan recognized George’s contribution to the Japan-United States relationship by giving him the Order of the Rising Sun, gold Rays with Rosette. The decoration was conferred by His Majesty, Emperor Akihito, at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in November, 2004.

Here is a TV commercial for zero-calorie Kirin Fire canned coffee that features the popular U.S. enka singer Jero. Apparently, the ad is going for a play on similarity between the Japanese pronunciation of the word “zero” and the name Jero.

VBS.tv is running an 8 part interview/tour with former Super Girl contestant, Yang Lei. VBS went to Shanghai, China to meet Yang in order to learn about the phenomenon that was the Super Girl, and ends up learning lot about current day China.

Super Girl is the Chinese equivalent to American Idol or the UK’s Pop Idol, only it’s limited to female contestants. The final episode of the last edition had an audience of over 420 million people, making it the biggest TV show in the history of TV. Over 1.2 billion votes were cast during the last edition of the Super Girl competition, making it also the biggest exercise in democracy in China’s history.

During the show contestants compete and campaign to move forward in the competition and the audience gets to “choose” or “select” (they’re not allowed to use the term “vote”) their favorite contestants. After the large response to the ability to vote, the Chinese government banned the show from continuing to a fourth season.

The above is Part 1 of the series. You can view the other parts here.

Popee is a brilliant series of animations that is longer being made, apparently because of complaints that it might be bad for kids. It is no more violent than Tom & Jerry, but certainly creepier and incomparably esoteric.

For better or worse, my daughter loves these. The same animator also made a series called Stain, well worth watching.

As you can deduce from reading JAPUNDIT and just about any other Japan blog, Japanese TV commercials are pretty popular the world over. . . Except in Japan, where people tend to tune them out.

So what do Japanese advertisers decide to do? Produce a TV commercial about TV commercials, of course.

Public broadcaster NHK has decided that if non-paying viewers won’t answer the door to the collectors, then they’ll get in by other means.

By law, anyone with ‘equipment capable of receiving a television signal’ is required to pay subscription fees to NHK. But with the number of dissenters growing, along with the cost of going round door to door to collect the money, NHK has decided alternative action is needed - large text messages across the screen which urge payment and block the view.

In a move aimed at satellite viewers, a Ministry panel has been “studying ways to prevent viewing of NHK programs via broadcasting satellite by people who have no subscription for any of the services or reception of satellite broadcasting programs by subscribers of terrestrial broadcasting.”

After studying ways to prevent such TV viewing, the panel set up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications concluded that the superimposition of messages pressing for payment of subscription fees in letters large enough to obstruct the view of programs would be effective.

Viewers can either subscribe to terrestrial broadcasting programs at 2,690 yen per two months through account transfer payment or to terrestrial and satellite broadcasting services at 4,580 yen also per two months through transfer payment.”

NHK subscription fees currently start at ¥14,910 a year for terrestrial, and ¥25,520 for a satellite contract. There is, however, no current legal penalty for non-payment.

SNL did a Japanese version of the popular US television show “The Office”. What do you guys think about this? I thought it started out really funny but then kind of creeped me out towards the end.

View the video here (it’s a flash video at hulu.com)

It’s one thing to idolise someone who happens to be stupid. It’s quite another to idolise someone because they’re stupid.

Japan’s pushy mothers may be missing a trick by keeping her offspring in juku (cram school) until late at night every day, when there is a clear alternative - professional idiocy.

There used to be a time when we were pretty undemanding of our entertainers provided that they had at least one marketable skill or talent. You’d forgive a good singer for being daft as a brush. Likewise you didn’t hold it against a great actor if he couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket.

Arise, おバカイドル (o-bakaidoru - a portmanteau of ‘baka’, meaning idiot, and ‘aidoru’, meaning idol) - the professional idiot.

Take the trio Suzanne (スザンヌ), Yukina Kinoshita (木下優樹菜) and Mai Satoda (里田 まい). All equally as daft as each other, and all over your TV screen all the time. See them at their ‘best’ on FujiTV’s Quiz Hexagon, hosted by the ‘punchy’ Shinsuke Shimada, where they will be set up and mocked for your delectation.

So taken were they with the girls’ talents, FujiTV execs even made the girls into a pop trio called Pabo (which is apparently Korean for, you guessed it, ‘idiot’).

And to prove it’s not all bimbos, there’s quite a selection of himbos too. Check out Shuuchishin (羞恥心) if you haven’t been driven to distraction by their played-to-death current single already. They’re another baka trio made up of Takashi Tsuruno (つるの剛士), Yuusuke Kamiji (上地雄輔) and Naoki Nokubo (野久保直樹).

FujiTV, who are giving the phrase “mindless entertainment” an entirely new spin, has a lot to answer for.