Though the Nippon Television variety program "Kenmin Show" ("Prefectural Citizen Show") has covered every regional peccadillo there is, the similarly themed occasional TBS series "Japan 47 Channels" attempts to discover towns and villages that have never been visited on TV. On this week's two-hour special (Wed., 9 p.m.), the producers seek out "astonishing islands."
There a small island in the Seto Inland Sea, part of Ehime Prefecture, whose 33 residents are all descendants of the warlord Oda Nobunaga, though only two-thirds have the surname Oda. Not far away in Yamaguchi Prefecture, there's another island famous for pure-bred Japanese, though in this case the population is all bovine. These cattle are indigenous to Japan and have been designated a national treasure. Only 10 are slaughtered a year, and the guests in the studio get to taste them.
Chimpanzees are social animals, and when one is raised by humans it usually has problems adjusting to a group. The documentary special "Lady Monogatari: Haha wo Nakushita Chimpanzee to Shikuin to no 1,600-hi" ("Lady's Story: 1,600 Days with a Motherless Chimp and Her Keeper"; Nippon TV, Sat., 10:30 a.m.) tells the story of Lady, a chimp born in the Maruyama Zoo in Hokkaido whose mother died when she was 2 months old.