Tag - channel-surf

 
 

CHANNEL SURF

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 29, 2016
'Kidnap Tour'; 'Takeshi's How to Look at Japan'; Y! Mobile
Now that school is out summer is officially here, and NHK celebrates with a dramatization of Mitsuyo Tsunoda's novel, "Kidnap Tour" (NHK-G, Tues., 7:30 p.m.).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 22, 2016
'Lockheed Incident Document 40th Year Shocking Scoop'; 'Yassan'; Xflag
Thanks mainly to a first-person "biography" written by former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, there is renewed interest in disgraced former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. NHK is presenting a series of special programs, some of which are dramatizations, about the scandal that brought Tanaka down: the Lockheed bribery incident.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 15, 2016
"Graduation Song"; "Natsuko Kira, Sales Manager"; Hearthstone
Based on a true story, the new drama series "Aogeba Totoshi" ("Graduation Song"; TBS, Sun., 9 p.m.) takes place at a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture in the 1980s.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 8, 2016
'I Absolutely Love You'; 'How Do You Do, I Love You'; Toyota
Love vs. career is the theme of the new drama series "Seisei Suru Hodo Aishite Iru" ("I Absolutely Love You"; TBS, Tues., 10 p.m.), which is based on a popular manga.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 1, 2016
'Doctor X'; 'The Man With the Divine Tongue" Kagome
Ryoko Yonekura returns as the genius freelance surgeon Dr. Michiko Daimon in a special two-hour installment of "Doctor X" (TV Asahi, Sun., 9 p.m.).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 24, 2016
'Tunnels' I Am the King of Sports'; 'Normal Is the Best'; Asahi Beer
You may wonder what former New York Yankee slugger Hideki Matsui has been up to since he retired several years ago. Well, one thing he's been doing is appearing on the sports variety show "Tunnels no Sports O wa Ore da" ("Tunnels' I Am the King of Sports"; TV Asahi, Sun., 8:58 p.m.), hosted by the comedy duo, Tunnels.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 17, 2016
'Medekin'; 'Pleased to Meet You, I'm an Office Worker, but also a Cabaret Hostess'; Glico
Some people think entrepreneurship is dead in Japan. They may change their tune if they watched the variety show "Medekin" (Fuji TV, Sun., 4:05 p.m.). The title is a play on the Japanese word "demekin," which refers to a bug-eyed goldfish, but the operative morpheme is "kin," meaning "money." The show profiles people who have come up with ideas that made them instantly rich.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 10, 2016
'Aiba Learns'; 'Good Fortune! Appraisal Team for Anything High Quality Treasure Salon'; Lotte — So
In addition to singing and dancing, the popular male idols managed by Johnny & Associates do a lot of educational TV, including "Aiba Manabu" ("Aiba Learns"; TV Asahi, Sun., 6 p.m.), in which Masaki Aiba, a member of boy band Arashi, learns about some common process. In the past, Aiba and his guests have had hands-on lessons about how to plant rice and how to catch tuna.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 3, 2016
'Legal Advice Office With a Line Outside the Door';
Before he became a firebrand politician, Toru Hashimoto was a lawyer and TV personality, and one of the variety shows he often appeared on was Nippon TV's "Gyoretsu no Dekiru Horitsu Sodanjo" ("Legal Advice Office With a Line Outside the Door"; Sun., 9 p.m.). This week, another retired political firebrand holds court on the show: former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 27, 2016
'Historical Unknowns: Historia'; 'Morning Comes'; DHC
Kumamoto Castle, which was seriously damaged in last month's earthquake, is one of Japan's most beloved and iconic landmarks. Originally built in the 15th century, the structure is one of the largest fortifications in Japan and covers a big piece of land. It is famous for its stone foundation — the product of its original owners' deep paranoia about being attacked.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 13, 2016
'Angel or Devil,' 'Cambrian Palace," Y!mobile
Recently, an artificial intelligence program developed by Google defeated several champions of the Asian board game go. The program's achievement made headlines all over the world since go is considered a very complex game. The programmers, in fact, thought it would take much longer for their creation to beat a human.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 6, 2016
'Chibi Maruko-chan,' S.T. Corp
Vacation is almost over, so it's back to the usual animated TV show grind. This week's episode of "Chibi Maruko-chan" — the 1051st! (Fuji TV, Sun., 6 p.m.) — finds the eternal elementary school student coming home from class on Saturday to an almost empty house, which is unusual.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 28, 2016
Sekai Shogeki Story; Chimpanzee Ai ga Oshiete Kureta; Aoki
Unidentified flying objects are a topic of great concern to people who have too much time on their hands. A retired sheriff from Colorado who has spent the past 25 years looking into UFOs is the subject of a report on the variety show "Sekai Shogeki Story" ("The World's Shocking Stories"; TV Tokyo, Wed., 9 p.m.).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 22, 2016
NNN Document 16; Fukigen-na Kajitsu; WOWOW
Tokai Television has become an expert on the subject of adoption in Japan, and this Sunday it will air the latest installment in its series "NNN Document 16" (Nippon TV, 12:55 a.m.)
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 15, 2016
Boku no Yabai Tsuma; Busujima Yuriko no Sekirara Nikki; DMM Mobile
Murder and infidelity are addressed with stylish flair in the new series, "Boku no Yabai Tsuma" ("My Dangerous Wife"; Fuji TV, Tues., 10 p.m.)
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 8, 2016
'Sotai 2'; 'The New Conspiracy'; CM of the week: Garigari-kun
Fifty-four-year-old Kenichi Endo has been a reliable character actor for years, but lately he's graduated to leading man status. On Wednesday, he stars as police detective Susumu Nihonmatsu in "Sotai 2" ("Organized Crime Countermeasure Division 2"; TV Tokyo, 9 p.m.).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 1, 2016
'The World's Human Body Mysteries'; 'The Flickering Drawing'; CM of the week: Recruit
Most people understand the limits of their bodies and live their lives accordingly, but some don't recognize those limits and they are the subjects of the two-hour special "Sekai Chojintai Mystery" ("The World's Human Body Mysteries"; TBS, Tues., 8:57 p.m.).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 24, 2016
'Stranger'; 'The World's Most Astonishing News'; CM of the week: Rohto
The TV Asahi drama special "Stranger" (Sun., 9 p.m.) is based loosely on "The Poe Family," the award-winning 1970s girl's comic by Moto Hagio, which is about vampires.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 18, 2016
History of life on Earth; a tale of two women; CM of the week: Asahi Group Foods
There has been life on Earth for roughly 3.8 billion years, and humans have only been around for a small portion of that time. The four-hour special "Ningen wa Nan da?" ("What is a Human Being?"; TBS, Mon., 7 p.m.) attempts to get at the meaning of human existence through close scientific research.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 11, 2016
Japan's empty-home epidemic; 'Beat' Takeshi makes sense of art; CM of the week: Kirin Beverage
The problem of akiya (empty homes) has become more prominent in recent years as the population continues to dwindle. A 2013 survey found there were around 8.2 million vacant residences, detached houses and apartments in Japan, and many are worth next to nothing.

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world