Posts Tagged ‘takeshi kitano’

Foreigners complain about Japan

On September 15th, ATV aired a Takeshi Kitano “World Summit” special that examined how other countries view Japan. Much like the infamous “Koko ga hen da yo, nihonjin” series, it included discussion with a large panel of Japanese-speaking foreigners.

Below are two clips from a section in which foreigners named problems the Japan needed to fix.

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Clip 1: A narrow mindset / Asking stupid questions

An Bangladeshi and Brazilian both bring up interesting issues. Unfortunately, more discussion time on the program was devoted to the complaints aired in the next clip.
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Clip 2: Pornographic Manga / Sexual Harassmen

A Vietnamese woman complaints about the existence of so much pornography and erotic manga in Japan. She fears that it will have a negative impact on her home country. She thinks it is great that Vietnam outlaws pornography.

Next, an American woman starts ranting about sexual harassment in Japan, condemning Japanese men as the most perverted in the world. Another American representative agrees with her statements and declares that he would never want to raise children in Japan.

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Just like “Koko ga hen da yo, nihonjin,” most of the show was spent listening to the loudest and most annoying panelists make stupid rants and sweeping generalizations about other nations and cultures. At least a few of the foreigners must have been hoping that saying outrageous things on TV might earn them some fame and income as a foreign tarento.

The full program was 2 hours in length. A lot of clips from it have been popping up on YouTube, so I will try to find some of the other interesting parts and share them in a few other posts.

[huge thanks to Miss Igirisu for informing me about this program!]

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Review: Boy and Big Dreams Little Tokyo

Occasionally, we here at Japan Probe have dabbled into review territory. Hopefully we will be doing them often enough to expose the readers to gems. This time, the review is in video form. My apologies ahead of time for my hypnotically slow voice, but remember it’s a review of two media items, not how much I suck at video making

You can find out more about Beat Takeshi’s Boy here.
You can find out more about Big Dreams Little Tokyo here (also filled with the type of music I talked about).

Beat Takeshi’s Russian Commercial

Japanese film director Takeshi Kitano got himself a rig as Panasonic’s spokesman in Russian commercials:

Find out more about the Russian advertising campaign over at Ryuganji, which has posted a photo of Takeshi’s giant billboard near the Kremlin!