Japan likes quiz shows. There are many of them on TV, each distinct from the others in some way, but they lack some things that are essential to other foreign game shows; if you compare Japanese shows to ones from the country I popped out of the main two differences are lack of common people and no prizes. One of the most popular quiz shows in Japan, recently, is Hexagon 2. Before we talk about the actual show we might as well talk more in depth about the differences between Japanese and other quiz shows.

While North American quiz shows only have famous people on every once in a while, if you watch a quiz show in Japan you’re likely not going to see any non-famous people unless if they cut to the audience – and they don’t hardly ever do that; this is just a fact of life over here. I could try to come up with a reason why you don’t see many blue/white-collar people on these shows but no matter what I say it will be rooted in conjecture. Nonetheless, it does have many advantages over having a bunch of regular people on a show (e.g. flow, humor).

We’re going to be here for a while.

Whatever type of show you’re watching (well, excepting news and similar programing), there’s going to be banter. In a lot of ways this is the lifeblood of Japanese television. It’s also something that can’t be assured if your cast/teams for the day are in front of a camera for the first time in their life. Try this (without having a long, tedious, casting call) on a show that would normally have two semi-famous people word-punching and you’ll almost certainly see the ratings fling itself off of the closest 10 story building and land at your feet for you to call time of death. I don’t really think I need to explain why there isn’t any money or prizes, right?

Hexagon 2, don’t worry about 1, gives us an interesting look into Japanese culture that we can’t find as easily on other shows, of the quizzical variety or not. Other quiz shows in Japan mostly try to have contestants that show some competency in a variety of subjects, but Hexagon purposefully has their teams consist of the whole spectrum from mouth breathers to those that are already manually editing their DNA by themselves. It started off as their schtick but, given its popularity, it’s obviously captured the attention of many Japanese (for at least one hour a week).

Jus’ ridin’ on the coattails of my slutty-ish sister.

How do we know who hasn’t watered their brain with knowledge juice besides their inability to answer questions? Prior to each episode each contestant takes a short test that covers a general smattering of what they should expect to hear during the program. Then during the beginning of the show all of the players on each team are ranked by their score. This ordering is of little importance through most of the episode (the easier question sets render order unimportant). This all changes in the final part of each show. The main, and likely most popular, portion of the show is the quiz relay. Each member of their team must correctly answer a question before the teammate behind them can have a chance of answering a question. Since this is a IFRL (intelligent first, retarded last) relay, it quickly devolves into a facepalm matsuri.

So what, if anything, does the popularity of this show tell us about Japan? If anything, I’d have to say laughter that comes from complete bewilderment. Bewilderment over how some of these people can be so dumb and yet still be on one of the rungs of the celebrity step-ladder; they can’t read kanji that a 12 year old can read and yet here they are on the TV. Hexagon 2 is, at times, a B (and C) celebrity version of “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”.

One effect this type of show can have is to help everyone see that all celebrities are, after all, just regular people. No need for pedestals nor reverence for people who really are just in a different industry than the blue-collar worker. And what way better to show that than a nice shower.

For the proletariat!

Himitsu no Kenmin Show (from here on out I’ll just be calling it Kenmin Show) is, at it’s core, both an interesting fact filled journey about different prefectures in Japan and a lackluster TV show that goes on about the same thing for way too long. This might seem quite paradoxical to some as interesting and lackluster usually don’t go together in any way whatsoever, but we’ll get to that in time. First, since the show is usually separated into distinct sections, let’s discuss what a regular show might look like.

After the introduction of the show and special guests (usually 20 or so per show), the first “secret” (秘密, himitsu) of one of Japan’s 47 prefectures begins. The formula for this portion (roughly 1/3 of the entire episode) is, like some other parts of the episode, quite formulaic. They start out by talking about the region and naming a food product that everyone knows. Afterwards they will show some footage asking residents of the local area about said secret product, which at this point will show the audience that this is a special version of the stated food item. After this they’ll show the item in a supermarket or restaurant. In the supermarket version you’ll see the area where the product is but you won’t see the actual food, it’ll be covered up like this. They’ll then cut to a house that happens to be eating that particular food. Again, you won’t see anything as they’re just waiting for the commercial break to happen so that they can tell you afterwards. If you happen to be watching an episode with a product that’s bought in a restaurant then you’ll hear someone order the food and then you’ll watch them eat it. There will be a commercial, they’ll come back and give you too much commentary from the local populace and audience members, and then there will be a taste test.

Karikari curry complements crunchy carp.

The second section of the show is usually a couple of little items from a list of revolving topics: strange sayings, very popular local restaurants, surveys, Osaka secrets, and any new idea they might have that they’d like to test.

The last option, especially since this summer, is the never ending story of Kyoichiro (京一郎) and Harumi (はるみ). This is also highly formulaic even if it’s usually interesting; it consists of a two episode story revolving around a particular prefecture. The story in each prefecture is very cookie cutter, but it does a good job at getting across a lot of information in a very short amount of time while managing to create a story that follows the two main characters.

You should have a good grasp of how the show works by now so let’s talk about how the show performs. If you’re watching the show regularly you’re going to quickly notice the extreme regularity in their creation of each section of the show. The topic they’re discussing could be strange and shocking, but after watching over 10 episodes of the show you’ll stop caring about the buildup in the beginning of the episode and just jump ahead to the reveal after the first commercial break. This is probably a good idea, it’s what I do, since by the time they taste test whatever they were talking about you’ve probably already been watching for about 12-15 minutes.

The middle of the show is one of the best parts given it’s weekly change of both topics and presentation. However, some of their newer ideas (who’s the bigger user of X) haven’t been that great and mostly involved charts. I tend to not skip this part of the show, at least in comparison to the beginning.

I’d love to say the same lines in the other 46 prefectures, Kyoichiro-chan.

The story of the constantly moving couple can be interesting or lame depending on the prefecture they’re in at the time. Some areas just really aren’t that exciting and have nowhere near the amount of material to fill two 10 minute segments. While the information they’re showing you can be interesting during this part, the sameness that you get when watching it, even given the fact that they are likely in a very different area, really makes it hard to put up with it; if they keep going along using their cruise control filming a sheet of facts about the prefecture in question is going to start looking interesting in comparison.

That said, it can be enjoyable and interesting to learn how each area in Japan differs from others. While some people have complained about the way the show portrays and exaggerates some “secrets” I still find it worth recording, even if I rarely watch more than half.

(Click here to watch some clips of the show)

I bought the TV in January of this year, but let’s pretend that I actually bought it in September of last year. Now if I was in some other country that I shan’t name (it’s not in Europe) I’d likely have a 1 year warranty, which leaves me stuck having to either pay a large repair bill or buy a new TV. Luckily Japan has a love of warranties almost as great as their love of kanchos (please fear the kancho). What this means in English speak, long warranties. But how long is long? When you have motherfuckers doling out 90 day warranties a 1 year warranty makes it seem like the company is being overly generous. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a 1 year warranty is long.

A warranty, more or less, is supposed to be a guarantee by the maker that tells you a few things – mostly quality and expectations. However, this isn’t always the case; many countries have warranty laws and some companies pride themselves on having long warranties, but there are many places where you’d be hard pressed to find a warranty longer than a year without paying a hefty fee for an extended warranty. Note: a product with a 1 year warranty doesn’t mean that it’s shoddy nor does it mean that if it happens to last one year without breaking that you should expect it to fall apart soon after. But even if it has good build quality the manufacturer is essentially tell you to shove off if you bought the product more than a year ago. Whether it’s because they’re cheap or that they make products that don’t last long, this makes it seem like the maker doesn’t trust its own creations. In this regard, unfortunately, Japan is very similar to many other countries; a 1 year warranty is usually all you are going to get.

But then something surprising happens. (To take my TV as an example), my manufacturer’s warranty is only for one year but somehow I have a 5 year warranty. I didn’t ask for an extended warranty and I certainly didn’t pay for one so what’s up with this? Big electronics stores. For some reason, the big electronics stores in Japan have decided to use warranties as a battleground to get more customers. This has led to “standard” warranties of 5 years that can easily (and cheaply) be extended up to twice that number.

It even covers battle sword injuries.

Now this is not to say that everyone that works at these stores acts like employees at Best Buy or Radio Shack. They’ll ask you if you want to pay the 3000 yen (or somewhere thereabouts) for the extended warranty and if you say that you’re not interested they’ll never ask again. Actually, one of the few extended warranties I’ve ever bought was one from Japan; when I bought my Xbox 360 I was told that I can get a 5 year Softmap warranty that covers pretty much everything (or at least more than the Microsoft warranty) and it only cost me 2000 yen. Because I was buying a used console this was about 10% of the price; those buying a new console would pay the same price – i.e. a 5 year warranty for less than 10% of the actual product.

It’s sad that manufacturers only give out short warranties here in Japan, but heaven seems to have smiled on the local populace and given them the wondrous gift of strong competition.

By the way, the tv (Toshiba Regza R9000) seems to be a Japanese only model.

I’d say that if you want something to be pissed about, it should be something more like this.

This just happened on TV a couple of days ago. He says 馬鹿 (ばか, stupid), which is fine, but he immediately follows it up with チョン (epithet against Koreans). I think he got off too lightly with his quick apology. Interestingly, Debito has nothing on this yet.

Update: The video is gone, go here or here to watch the video.