Homosexual Variety Show Moving to Lucrative Time Slot

Fall is nearly upon on, and McDonald’s Japan has once again begun to air commercials for it’s Moon Viewing Burger. The commercial has the same appearance as the one that aired last year, but they’ve updated the dialogue to reflect popular new slang. When one moon rabbit opens his McDonald’s bag to find a burger, he shouts out “dondake?!!” What the hell does that mean? Trends in Japan has a pretty good post explaining the this phrase:

Here’s the deal: There’s a Japanese “celebrity” named Ikko who regularly appears on the Lincoln variety show. Ikko is an okama, a word that refers to an effeminate gay man or drag queen, and her catch phrase this year has been “dondake?!”. The general meaning is “WTF?!”, and has become quite popular among the Shinjuku 2-Chome gay scene. There’s even an L-shaped hand gesture with the thumb and pointer finger. Think “Oh no you didn’t” with some accompanying finger snaps and you get the idea.

The same post predicts that IKKO and “dondake” are a one-hit wonder that will eventually fade into obscurity like so many other Japanese cultural icons (anybody seen Hard Gay on TV recently?). That may well be the case, but we’ll be seeing a lot more of IKKO and his catchphrase thanks to a recent decision by NTV to move the gay variety show Onee-mans from Saturday afternoon to a popular Tuesday night time slot.

If you’re interested, here’s a short clip from last Saturday’s episode of Onee-mans:

The show is centered around a panel of Japan’s most famous and glamorous homosexual men, almost all of whom are involved in fashion or design work. The show is hosted by Tatsuya Yamaguchi of the pop group TOKIO [a straight man, apparenty], who introduces a variety of expensive foods and fashion products for the panelists to go gaga over. The panelists also take small trips to restaurants, hair salons, and expensive brand clothing shops, sampling and showing off products too expensive for most viewers of the program to regularly enjoy. All throughout the show the audience is given plenty of “dondake” action from IKKO, who is by far the most silly member of the cast.

It isn’t particularly fantastic, but I would guess it is popular because it adds the new and interesting gay element to a genre of show that has existed for quite some time with mostly female cast members. Perhaps there are some proud fans of Onee-mans out there that can educate us on the secret behind this shows success?