The small screen needs the small mercies of 'Terrace House'
Television has long been my connection to home. White Walkers ushering in an apocalyptic winter, Cold War sleeper agents going rogue, robots running amok in an Old West theme park — all of these have but a passing resemblance to my former life in ...
'Ainori' teaches lessons in love ... and soft power
Netflix Japan's reboot of the reality show "Ainori" features plenty of drama — most of it interpersonal, but some geopolitical. The streaming-era version of the show, a joint effort between Fuji TV and Netflix, debuted last fall. Like the original incarnation that ran from 1999 ...
NHK tries to clear up LGBT misconceptions
Last month, publisher Iwanami Shoten was criticized for its definition of “LGBT” in the newest edition of Kojien, which is considered to be the most authoritative dictionary of the Japanese language. The complaint was specifically about the meaning of the acronym’s “T” portion, which ...
2018: Year of the 800-pound Gorilla
Four topics dominated Japan's non-Twitter news cycle for the last quarter of 2017. Two involved sports: the signing of 23-year-old baseball superstar Shohei Otani to play for the Los Angeles Angels of the American League; and the resignation of sumo grand champion Harumafuji after ...
Fuji TV's home-improvement wrecking ball
A popular sub-genre of reality TV is the home-improvement show, and as with many things having to do with television, Japan did it first. On TV Asahi's "The Before and After," which launched as a weekly series in 2002, superannuated, usually cramped properties are magically ...
Fuji TV's wishful thinking is food for thought
Since 1987, Fuji TV has owned Monday night, specifically the 9 to 10 p.m. time slot, when it broadcasts fluffy romantic drama series starring the season's hottest actress and often a prominent member of a boy band. This phenomenon has its own name — getsu-ku ...
A Japanese TV network apologized Monday for making viewers "feel unpleasant" over a comedy program that revived a 30-year-old stereotype character depicting a gay man. The character called "Homo-oda Homo-o," a name incorporating "homo" — a derogatory term in Japan for homosexual men — twice, ...
Fuji TV reporter who allegedly bought car for yakuza also suspected of lending money: police
A Fuji Television Network Inc. reporter who allegedly purchased a luxury car on behalf of a man connected to the underworld is also suspected of lending millions of yen to the mobster, police officials said. The 32-year-old male employee, who was relieved of his reporter's ...
Fuji TV reporter suspected of using name to help mobster buy car
A reporter for Fuji TV is suspected of helping an underworld syndicate member purchase a car by allowing the use of his name, according to sources. The police have opened an investigation into the matter, the sources said Monday. The reporter, who is in his 30s, ...
Pundit didn't need an actual Harvard degree to get top marks in gaming the system
On Feb. 29 a group of veteran journalists held a press conference to protest communications minister Sanae Takaichi's comment that the government could shut down broadcasters if their news programming was deemed to be politically biased. Former Mainichi Shimbun reporter Shuntaro Torigoe said that ...
Who are you calling a honky? Gaffe-prone Fuji TV stumbles again
Internet users were snorting in derision after participants on a Fuji TV entertainment show wore T-shirts with a bizarre English slogan incorporating a word that some Caucasians might find offensive. The shirts read: "No Fun No TV Do Honky." The overall phrase left viewers baffled, ...
