Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: The Boy Prince Slot

The youngest male on the panel is the only position which has changed since the last four panelists were introduced at the end of episode 26 of B&GND. In this entry, I will discuss the guys who have filled that role in the order that they appeared.

Hiroomi Tosaka (b. March 12, 1987) is actually one of the biggest names to appear on the panel. He is a singer in a popular boy-band the Sandaime J Soul Brothers (the third J Soul Brothers). Their last four albums have gone to number 1 in Japan, and they topped this year's list of concert attendance with 1.8 million tickets sold to their 37 shows this year. By comparison the most successful idol group this year, Nogizaka46, sold 488,000 tickets for 38 shows. His run lasted throughout B&GND.

Mochizuki Ayumu (b. September 28, 2000) is the actor who was given the nickname "Boy Prince" by the Rose Buddies podcast (now called the Wonderful! podcast). He has had good start to his career as a child actor having been in five features and five j-dramas in the past two years. We almost certainly heard from him the least of all the panelists

Kentaro (b. June 30, 1997) replaced Mochizuki Ayumu somewhere around episode 25 of B&GITC and lasted through the entirety of AS. He is also an actor, but his career is a bit further along. His first leading role in a feature film is in Demekin which was just released. Like his predecessor we rarely heard from him unless explicitly prompted by Yama Chan.

Shono Hayama (b. December 19, 1995) will be taking the boy prince slot in OND. He is yet another actor with an even more extensive filmography than the prior two though, as far as I can tell he has not yet had a lead in a film (but he's also two years older than Kentaro).

Omichan is five years older than Torichan, and so he was a bit more apt to speak out than the other members in the boy prince slot. I believe that the move to a younger panelist was an expression of the production's desire for an even wider audience demographic. The casting of the panel as audience surrogates makes it clear that the production sees their show as being for all ages interested in real romance (which might exclude tweens and younger, but then again...).

But being the youngest member of the panel is a harder role to fill in Japanese culture in particular. Torichan has the advantage on the show of having been the second panelist, and so the newer members do defer to her a bit, but there's no such advantage for the youngest guy now. His best chance to get a word in is after all the rest have had their say, and that can be particularly hard when Tokui and You begin riffing. And so, while I'm sure Shono Hayama will be personable, I have little expectation that he will shake up to role all that much when OND begins next week.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Babachan

Azusa Babazono (b. March 1, 1981) is, other than the youngest boy prince, the hardest member of the panel to get to know outside of Japan. She, like Yamachan, is a manzai comedian, and her comedy partner is Miho Sumida. Collectively, the duo is known as "Asian", and they had their most successful year in the M-1 comedy competition as Yamachan's did coming in 8th compared to Nankai Candies' 2nd in 2004. From what I can tell, her partner has gotten married and mostly retired from performing.

Babachan, on the other hand, has developed a steady career as a character actress. She's appeared in a few j-drama's every year since 2013.

Her most recent role is in Kono yo ni tayasui shigoto wa nai (watchable at that link with English subtitles) which was broadcast earlier this year. She appears in the first two episodes in the second largest role as a copy writer and announcer for a small city bus company who begins to show the young woman protagonist how to change her reality through the power of ... advertising. Babachan's performance in the show is sunny and magical, and it's well worth checking out those two episodes.

Her role on Terrace House is largely as a fashion goddess, and we, unfortunately, do not get hear from her as frequently as the other panelists. She is even more self-deprecating than Yamachan, She calls herself out for being ugly when, clearly, she's not. She may not match the ridiculous standards for cis-gendered women in the entertainment industry of our times, but she's pretty, she has amazing sense of style and an easy charisma that she can turn on like a klieg light. Her insights about what's happening between the housemates are well worth paying attention to.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Yamachan

Yamasato Ryota (b. April, 14 1977) is kind of analogous to Chris Hardwick: he's primarily a stand-up comedian who has built a career out of being a host. He hosts game shows, talk shows, radio shows and award shows. He has leveraged his image as a nerd into gigs where he gets to interact with the people involved in his fandoms. His focus appears to be more into entertainment in general rather than the things we normally associate with Japanese otaku. He does not appear to be huge fan of manga, or anime, for instance.

Like most comedians in Japan he is part of a comedy duo or manzai. His partner is Yamasaki Shizuyo who has had a successful career as an actress, but who also made a credible attempt to make the Japanese Olympic team as a boxer in the last couple of Olympics. Collectively, Yamasoto and Yamasaki are known as Nankai Candies (apparently through the usual process of a series of puns which can get far more complex in Japanese as different sounds of associated with written characters get substituted). They broke onto the entertainment scene in 2004 by placing second in an important comedy competition.

Yamachan's career has brought him, unsurprisingly, in contact with many other people and threads related to Terrace House. Here, for instance, is Yamachan as a CGI Pharaoh mummifying Torichan ("Yama" means "mountain" in Japanese, and so if Torichan is our little bird on the panel, Yamachan is our little mountain) on a game show before they joined the Terrace House panel:

Yamachan also had ties to AKB48 (which I discussed in the entry on Tokyo Idols) having served as the referee for three of their Janken competitions. (Yes, in addition to their annual popularity elections, AKB48 also more occasionally determines who will get to be on a single by a single elimination rock-paper-scissors tournament.) The last time he refereed the tournament was before Rie joined AKB48, however, and so they would not have met then.

More than anyone else on the panel, Yamachan is a fan of Terrace House. For B&GITC he produced a video after-show for the Netflix YouTube channel with his thoughts on each episode. He also tweets more about the show than anyone else on the panel, but, then, he tweets a lot in general.

His role in the panel is often as a foil: he is likably comfortable with taking positions contrary to everyone else in the group, and cheerfully accepts their mocking and condemnation. He does appear to express more traditional attitudes towards dating than certainly You and Tokui. He sides with the idea that a couple should not kiss or hold hands before they have stated that they like each other, for instance. And he expresses his ire with a light and humorous touch when dating etiquette is violated. He genuinely seems to care about the show and the people on it, and is more than anyone else the surrogate on the panel for obsessive Terrace House fans even though his expressed opinions might differ from such fans.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Tokui

Yoshimi Tokui (b. April 16, 1975) is the oldest man on the panel and is almost exactly two years older than Yamachan. As such, he is probably the most frequent commentator though he certainly defers to You who is more in charge of the hosting and generally guides the conversation. He is charming and handsome, but also the earthiest of the panelists.

He is primarily an actor having had roles in a couple of dozen J-dramas and a few films. Like most tarento, he routinely appears on variety shows as well. It's generally hard to find anything he has been in other than Terrace House which has been subtitled in English. I have found exactly one such J-drama which has been fan-subbed: N No Tame Ni. He plays the role of a man who was murdered in his Tokyo apartment along with his wife. I watched the first 8 minutes or so of the series, but the show mostly focuses on the young people who committed the crime and what led to their doing so. I have no idea when Tokui's character makes an appearance, but its clear that his role in this drama is pretty secondary at best.

As you dive into Terrace House, though, you will quickly uncover the things that he is infamous for: Handjob Karaoke, Pero Pero House and condom ads. Everyone's initial impression of the first of those is that he hosted one of those wacky ongoing Japanese game shows that, in this case, involves men trying to complete a karaoke song before cumming while being given a hand-job. In fact, however, there have only been two episodes of the show and both were a part of the same show that resulted in Pero Pero House. The real story is that Tokui has been hosting a series of specials on an adult satellite network since March, 2013 a month before he first appeared on Terrace House. Google translate puts the name of the show as "Keeping the Chuck of Tokui Yoshimi Down" though I have seen it translated as "Unzipped". There have been seven episodes so far with the most recent in October of 2016. The Pero Pero House sketches were on the 3rd, 4th and 5th episodes and the Handjob Karaoke episodes were on the 6th and 7th.

Pero Pero House is a softcore parody of Terrace House, and it says a lot about Terrace House that the production is perfectly fine with Tokui repeatedly making fun of the incredible length of time it takes for housemates to hook up on the show. The continued presence of Tokui on the panel as a voice of sex-positivity is a strong indication of the show's implicit critique of Japanese dating culture. The show really does seem to wish dating were easier in Japan.

Of course, the downside of Tokui's openness and good cheer is that he does occasionally veer into the objectification of women as does the show in general. Tokui's reaction to Chikako is the clearest example: he almost instantly states at her first appearance that she must be great in bed, and the scenes of her eating a banana are utter catnip to him.

Tokui is our favorite somewhat skeevy and disreputable uncle on the panel. He is given to flights of improvised fan-fiction that never come true. He presents the view-point that consensual sex is a generally a good thing, and he never slut-shames and in fact constantly battles Yamachan's impulses to do so.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Torichan

Continuing our examination of the panelists we turn the second panelist who appeared on the 14th episode of B&GND:

Reina Triendl (b. Jan. 23, 1992).

First of all, how do we get from her Austrian name to "Torichan"? Japanese often uses one of its two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, to write foreign words. Her last name is written トリンドル in katakana. Each of the symbols represents a vowel or a single consonant followed by a vowel sound (with the sole exception of ンand its equivalent in hiragana which represent an "N" sound with no following vowel). Thus, トリンドル would be pronounced To - Ri - N - Do - Ru or "Torindoru" which gets shortened to "Tori" which, coincidentally and appropriately means "bird" in Japanese. The -chan suffix is a more informal and friendly honorific and is, perhaps, slightly diminutive. Torichan is our little bird on the panel.

(TANGENT. It was not until the announcement of the upcoming series, Terrace House: Opening New Doors that I realized the strange feature of the show's names in Japanese: they are all written and pronounced as English words. Episode 1 opens (nearly three years before the show would seek an international audience via its affiliation with NetFlix) with the name of the show displayed as "Terrace House Boys X Girls Next Door" with テラスハウス in green below that. This latter became the franchise name:テラスハウス. which is pronounced Te - Ra - Su - Ha - U - Su - "Terrace House". The first NetFlix series was also only written in English, "Terrace House Boys X Girls In The City", but, otherwise. used the franchise name. The most recent series is written テラスハウス アロハ ステート that is, Te - Ra - Su - Ha - U - Su - A - Ro - Ha - Su - Te - (e) - To. And the next series is テラスハウス オープニング ニュー　ドアーズ or Te - Ra - Su - Ha - U - Su - O - (o) - Pu - Ni - N - Ngu - Ni - Yu- (u) - Do - A - (a) - Zu or "Terrace House Opening New Doors".)

Torichan was the youngest member of the panel in B&GND, but she has, nevertheless, already had a flourishing career as a model and an actress in TV dramas and film. In fact, she plays the protagonist in a film available right now on US NetFlix called Tag.

Unlike, YOU's film Nobody Knows, I do recommend watching Tag. It is a horror film, but it is not torture porn and the violence is ridiculously over-the-top and cartoonish. If (spoiler from the first few minutes of the film) seeing two busses of school girls get sliced in half by a mysterious wind decapitating everyone except Torichan's character (who was reaching for something on the floor at the time) or occasional panty-shots or the lack of a full explanation for what is happening are deal breakers for you, do not watch this film. Otherwise, it's an enjoyable, evocative film with some striking moments of utter beauty. Torichan does play the protagonist, but the main character changes actresses, character and location a few times. Her character does begin and end the film, and she has the screen-presence and charisma to anchor your interest in the narrative.

Torichan is a superb addition to Terrace House. As we see from the few episodes where she is absent. she tempers the bawdier elements in the panel (generally, Tokui and YOU). She does not speak as often as others on the panel - part of that may be cultural since younger members in a group will often be expected to be silent unless their opinion is solicited. Fortunately, YOU does often ask what Torichan thinks of various moments in the show, and Torichan responses are generally sweet, romantic, sometimes surprisingly lusty, and frequently insightful. She's my favorite member of the panel.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: YOU

Panels are a common part of Japanese variety shows. Usually, they are there to provide comic commentary via inset reaction shots in one corner of the screen. Terrace House's panel does so as well, but instead of insets the show hard cuts to their reactions, and the reaction segments are comparatively long. Thus, in addition to quips we get largely empathetic analysis, discussion and occasional fan-fiction. The panel is clearly designed to be an audience surrogate, and you can tell from the demographics of the panelists that the intention of the show is to have as wide an audience as possible.

And so who are these panelists? They are generally "tarento", Japanese entertainers who serve as hosts and fodder for a endless array of game shows and variety shows. They may have had moments of fame in their prior careers, but, mostly, they are now "famous for being famous". In this series of articles, I'll take a look at the panelists, and examine where they came from and some interesting tidbits from there prior careers.

YOU (born August 29, 1964) is the original and sole host of B&GND. The show's first thirteen episodes had her introducing the show usually from the interior of a product placed car at night as she went from one part of her glamorous life to another. Her original name was Ehara Yukiko, and, thus, her personal name was often shortened to "Yu", but, at some point, her stage name became "YOU" in the English alphabet which is quite striking when it appears in Japanese credits.

She came to fame as the lead singer of a pop/New Wave band called Fairchild. Their music is largely 80s pop dance music with synths which is strange because their live performances were a standard rock quartet with no keyboards at all. Many of their videos can be found on YouTube. Fairchild only lasted from 1988 to 1993.

After that she moved into a general tarento career which included acting in dozens of television dramas and feature films. She received some notice for her feature film debut: 2004's Nobody Knows. As of the posting of this entry, you can watch the movie with English subtitles here, but I strongly advise against your doing so. The film is well regarded: Roger Ebert gave it 4.5 stars out of 5. However, I found it unrelentingly dire. YOU plays the single mother of four children all by different fathers who is trying to find a way for her family to exist in Tokyo, and (spoiler) she only appears in the first maybe 30 minutes of this 2hr 20min film. Her performance is good, but it's a haunting film chock full of despair.

As the anchor of the Terrace House panel, YOU represents an older female demographic, but she easily exudes a rocker-chick vibe that completely undercuts her age. She remains along with Tokui and Yama the most active of the panelists frequently launching into bits with her partner in crime Tokui, but also tossing to Torichan and rebuking Yamachan. She is a treasure.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: The Unbranded

Clearly, many of the housemates on Terrace House are on the show to promote themselves as a brand in their chosen profession. I suspect that the production company could easily fill the house entirely with performing artists and models, and in many ways it would be advantageous to the show to do so: it creates synergies with large talent and modeling agencies, allows access for the show and housemates to attend larger events, and leverages the promotional power of these other groups to promote Terrace House. That being the case, it is remarkable that the show has since day one on B&GND generally always included housemates for whom being on the show will do nothing in particular to promote their chosen career. Consistent with the other hidden agendas within the production, the show seems interested in exploring the idea that a wide variety of people can live together in harmony, and that everyone can add value to each other's lives when there is a forum to get to know each other as individuals.

Japanese culture is unusually homogeneous and there are societal pressures to conform which are unimaginable in the US. For instance, last month a student sued her prefecture after being repeatedly required by her schools to dye her naturally brown hair black under a policy that is meant to deter students from dying their hair. Terrace House presents an opposite ideal to Japan's more traditional values around conformity: people with widely varying backgrounds, aspirations and looks can all live together, help each other and even find romance.

In fact, the show goes out of its way to source housemates outside of the agencies which provide the models, actors, performing artists and professional sportspeople which have been the majority of the cast. Mizuki, for instance, reports that she was scouted for the show. Arman had done some production work on other shows, and was approached through those connections. And the show has also has accepted online applications for anyone who might be interested in joining the cast although it is unclear to me if anyone on the show was cast from those applications.

Of course, the distinction between which housemates are there to promote their personal brand and those who have no such agenda is a bit blurry and can change. It is hard to see how being on Terrace House can particularly help a realtor, an architect or someone who wants to launch a coffee shop. I'm sure Eric appreciates the fans who seek out The Punchbowl, but their patronage alone cannot sustain his business. On the other hand, Tecchan from B&GND came to the show legitimately training to be a fireman, but then used his presence on the show to create a successful personal brand.

The danger of including only people who are there to enhance their personal brand is that it can lead to inauthentic interactions and even outright deception. In US reality shows the casting for hyperbolic personalities creates an ecosystem of famewhores who see it as a route to become that perverse idea of someone who is famous for being famous. Terrace House cuts through that miasma by casting people who have genuine talents and by largely screening out the overly dramatic.

However, this approach is not perfect. Wez is clearly only on the show to present DOPE favorably on camera, and Cheri has issues that would seem perfectly normal on US reality TV. However, the other unbranded members of the cast like Anna and Chikako ground the show and create resistance against the imperative of the others to protect their brand by only presenting themselves in a favorable light.

Terrace House's formula of including people with no personal brand has generally been successful at avoiding some of the insidious tropes of Western reality TV. By doing so, it presents a vision of inclusiveness as alternative to the traditional conformity of Japanese. The show supports the ideal that people can find and love each other because of their variety and not despite their differences.

Terrace House, A Deeper Dive: Tokyo Idols and Casting

Tokyo Idols is a documentary on the idol industry in Japan and was released on NetFlix last month. It is not directly related to Terrace House, but, nevertheless, it served to change my mind on one aspect of how the casting is done on Terrace House. Prior to watching this film I felt that the show should not have cast people in the idol industry like Rie (B&GND) and Rikopin (B&GITC) because these women are contractually obligated not to have a boyfriend, and being on Terrace house often put them in the untenable position of having to choose between forming a romantic relationship and their job.After watching the film, however, I believe that Terrace House's approach to relationship formation is far more healthy and appropriate for Japanese culture, and is a strong counter to the highly problematic aspects of the idol industry as a whole.

I do recommend watching Tokyo Idols. It provides an excellent, and, I believe, a fairly balanced view of how the idol industry exploits both the idols and their fans. It should be said, however, that otaku who follow idols do not agree that the film is balanced because it does not feature any women fans, and over emphasizes the presence and impact of sketchier older men in the fandom and their relationship to these young women. That being said, you do not need to watch the film to understand idol culture as it is currently structured in Japan, but, instead, you need only learn about the history of AKB48 (the group that Rie was in during B&GND).

Idol culture as it exists now is the result of a couple of promotional innovations that, as far as I can tell, arose with AKB48. The group started in 2005 as a primarily live act with its own theater space in the Akihabara district of Tokyo. The marketing genius and lyricist behind all of the the group's singles is Yasushi Akimoto,who came up with the ideas that if you bought a CD single you would get two things in addition to the music: a chance to shake the hand of a girl in the group and starting in 2009 a chance to vote for which of the girls would be featured in one of the singles in an annual election called the senbatsu sōsenkyo.

The handshake events were so successful that they became a ubiquitous feature of the idol industry, and the film does an excellent job of exploring what these events mean to the fans. Essentially, men (mostly) are given a chance to hold the hands of these pretty, young women for a few seconds and establish a connection which can be renewed at subsequent events. The film argues that these events have become so successful that they are, in part, responsible for Japan's lower birth rate. I find that thesis overblown; however, the film does provide evidence that there are a set of men who find easier to have these interactions than to try to get to know the real women in their lives as people and form relationships with them.

It is important to understand just how big the idol industry in Japan has become. The film mentions that there are around 10,000 young women who call themselves idols. The larger AKB48 organization alone has about 800 girls from various sister bands throughout Japan and Asia who can take part in the annual elections.

And those elections are a big deal in Japan. Here's a look at Google search for "American Idol" and "election" in the US:



As you can see, at it's peak American Idol was about as popular as US congressional elections during non-presidential campaign years. Here's a similar graph showing the popularity for the word "election" in Japan along with the Japanese for the more AKB48-specific term senbatsu sōsenkyo:



Those smaller peaks between the spikes are the national parliamentary elections. That is, by this measure the AKB48 elections drive about six times as much interest online as their national governmental elections.

Part of the problem in idol culture is the "love ban": idols who are popular enough to be in group with a management team are routinely required to sign a contract forbids them from having boyfriend or even giving the appearance that they might have had sex with anyone. It is generally believed that these clauses would be legally unenforceable, but they have not, as far as I can tell, ever been tested. Nevertheless, there have been many "scandals" in the idol industry in which these young women have been discovered giving such an appearance and some of them have been forced to leave the industry early as a consequence. In fact, the biggest news from the most recent AKB48 elections was an idol announcing she would be getting married as a way to get out in  front of such a "scandal". She will, of course, be leaving the group as a consequence.

Idol culture brings many people together to focus attention and money on the idealized presentation of a relatively few young women. It is exploitative both of the young women themselves and of the lives and livelihoods of at least some of its fans. It has created many-to-one versions of relationships which foster and sustain a mere patina of what a real relationship can and should be between two human beings.

Terrace House, whatever other faults it may have, is all about how two people get to know each other as equal individuals, and the show celebrates those genuine individual connections as they form. If idol culture in Japan is a kind of poison, then Terrace House is a kind of antidote to that poison. And so, thanks to Tokyo Idols I am now completely in favor of including idols in the cast.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Mila

Mila set the record for the shortest stay on Terrace House at six weeks. She was, nevertheless, one of the more likable housemates, and so we wonder why we got to see so little of her while she was around and why she left so soon.

The biggest problem behind her lack of screen-time was, of course, Taishi's transformation of the show into a version of The Bachelor centered squarely on him, and he, surprisingly, did not manage to ask Mila out in the 257 seconds between her arrival and that of Chikako. Mila was almost instantly made irrelevant to Taishi's arc, and was, similarly, sidelined when Cheri went to meet Eric.

Mila is interested in fashion (you can check out her vlog here which is still active) and fashion design, in particular, but we never got to see it other than her breezy, beachy personal style. Those of us who watch Project Runway know that there was been some interest by young designers in exploring the possibilities in neoprene, and she says on screen a couple of times that that's what she wants to do. But, unlike Uchi, she did not drag a sewing machine to the house, and so we never got to see her constructing a garment. And, unsurprisingly, Guy never did seem to follow through by connecting her to the wet-suit makers that he knew. And so, Mila, was largely relegated to the role of witness in most of her on-screen interactions, and she was good at that role providing some humor and pleasant interactions. But, you know, the panel already provides an audience surrogate, and so it's tough to add to that role as a housemate.

As for why she left, we can only speculate. As others have noted, she was the youngest in the house and the only one in the house at the time who could not drink which excluded her from going to Wez' gig. Yuya faced a similar few weeks when he was the only non-drinker, but he and Avian were already on their path towards their relationship by that point. Hikaru on B&GITC also came into the house as the only one too young to drink at the time, and he lasted a bit longer.

There may have been some indirect pressure from the production as well in her decision. I doubt anyone took her aside and suggested she should leave. But I do imagine that the producers do update the cast about any NetFlix extensions and what the currently anticipated ending date is for the show. I can also imagine that at some point they say to the cast that this is the last chance for you to leave because the show will be ending in, say, eight weeks, and we'll expect you to stick it out from this point onward if you stay. And I can easily imagine such an announcement resulting in the call we see Mila make announcing her exit.

It also must be said that from everything I have seen, being on reality TV can be hard in unexpected ways. There is often a camera crew around, and placing mics and replacing their batteries becomes a routine invasion of your personal space. Most shows forbid turning off your mic during the day, and so you must somehow accept that all your bathroom noises are getting recorded. It could simply be the case that Mila never got comfortable with the routine production processes of the show.

As for the romantic possibilities within the cast for Mila, her options were also pretty limited. She lost her four-minute window with Taishi when Chikako arrived immediately after she did. Guy is certainly warm and attractive, but I can easy imagine that it was impossible to compete with the ghost of Niki so soon after she left. And Wez was circling Anna, or leading whatever life he was having outside the show. And in the end she may not have felt it was worth sticking around to meet whoever would replace Guy.

Terrace House almost certainly would have been better with more Mila. She was sunny, witty and charming. I suspect she would have stuck around longer were the show set in Japan where it would be comparatively easy to continue with her vocational aspirations and check in with friends and family. It is our loss that we did not get to see more of her on the show.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Makoto and the Failure of Jock Prvilege

Let he who has never squandered an opportunity throw the first stone. I know I have, and so I hope to approach the topic of Makoto's run on the show with sympathy and kindness. It is easy to be triggered by some of the people on the show and what we see them do. Most of us were not jocks and cheerleaders in high school, and the show pulls from that pool relatively frequently. American society showers praise and privilege on its athletic heroes to the point that at their most successful levels they can be placed above the law. And, yet, Makoto's story is much more typical of student athletes. The vast majority of athletes who aspire to reach professional levels in their sport will not make it, and the system of privilege that supports can utterly fail them as they exit the path.

Makoto's arc on Terrace House is the opposite of what we usually see on the show. The show casts some people with a talent of some kind, and the usual arc for those housemates is that we hear about the talent when they first appear, and and some point thereafter they have some pivotal event scheduled, all the housemates go, and everyone including the audience are blown away by what this person can do. As far as we can tell, Makoto never gets to pitch at a game in his final year in college, and, in the end, he leaves the house with no clear idea of what he will do next in his life.

The show implicitly and consistently frames a value around vocational aspirations which is shared between Japanese and US culture. We know that not everyone can succeed in their current career path, and so a value is placed upon the performative display of effort. We'd have more sympathy for Makoto if we could see him working out and doing physical therapy to address his injuries. But, instead, we just see him around the house usually eating something that is not particularly healthy. We want to root for him, but we can't if do not perceive that he is even trying.

But maybe he was trying his best, and the show would not or could not show him doing so (perhaps because they could not get the appropriate filming permissions and releases). It's certainly the case that he did not feel that he could ask Minori out while his school's baseball season was still happening. And that pressure led him to the regrettable shoe incident. The desire to prioritize his baseball team was there, if not the drive or ability to succeed.

Societal privilege is an unhealthy thing not only for those who are excluded from that privilege, but also for those it leads on. What of the college athletes who earn a degree, but because of their privilege on campus, do not learn the thinking skills and subject matter knowledge that can result in jobs after their sports careers come to an end? Makoto's arc on the show is sad, and he disappeared from social media thereafter. When we were introduced to him, he was considered charming and handsome. All three girls put him at the top. We can critique his attempts at manipulation, but in the end, I suspect, that Makoto was not the man he could be, and I suspect that a part of that lack of formation was rooted in the negative aspects of jock privilege. I wish him well, and I hope he eventually finds his way.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Ten Things You Will Not See On Terrace House

One occasionally useful approach to defining and understanding something is too consider what it is not. In Orthodox Christian theology it is comparatively common to approach a definition of God by investigating what God is not. This approach is called apophatic or negative theology. In this analysis we consider what Terrace House is not in order to get a clearer view of what it is.

More specifically we will look at what does not occur in the course of the episodes, and in particular the kinds of things that we would expect to occur based on our experience of similar reality TV shows and in our own lives. Let me be clear at this point: the fact that these things do not exist in the Terrace House universe as presented to us is almost always a good thing. The show would be markedly worse in almost every case if these things were brought up on screen.

And so here are ten things you will not see on Terrace House:

1. Abrasive Reality TV Tropes Many of us are attracted to Terrace House because it does not contain a lot of things we are used to seeing on reality TV. No hair-pulling cat-fights, or testosterone-fueled fist fights. No saying, "I'm not here to make friends". And, as far as we can tell, no producer-instigated drama at all (though we always fear that the producers might be staging some of these events). Almost every positive article about Terrace House mentions the absence of these things, and comments on how supposedly boring the resulting show becomes before concluding how addictive and refreshing the show is.
2. Confessionals and Cast-Interacting Hosts There is a simple reason why confessionals and hosts shepherding the cast are ubiquitous on reality TV: creating a narrative is much much easier when you have a narrator. The panel on Terrace House does fill this role to a certain extent, but they like us are limited to what the producers show us, and the producers are limited almost entirely to what the housemates say to each other on camera. I am guessing that prior to their coming on the show that the producers make it clear to each housemate where the fixed camera set-ups are in the house (dining table, living room, rec room and both bedrooms) and that no story will make it on screen unless they talk about it. And so they are encouraged to gather in those spots regularly to talk about what is happening particularly around any dates which are planned or have happened.
3. Housemates Discussing the Panel The show can get pretty meta since the housemates can and do watch the show while their on the show. If you get a chance to watch the original B&GND, you will learn that in the earliest episodes the turn-around time was mind-boggling short. There is at least one instance of several housemates being shown watching the show and seeing what was said in the previous week(!). But while the show exists in the universe of the housemates, and even the reactions to what is happening on the show in social media is (rarely) discussed, the housemates never acknowledge or discuss what is said by the panel. In the universe of the housemates, the panel does not exist.
4. Politics And I'm sure we're all thankful for that fact.The house exists in world with neither Japanese nor any other political discourse. Furthermore, no housemate engages in any kind of political activism on any side of any issue. IIRC, The Real World went there early on, but I do not know how much that became a continuing feature of the lives of the cast-mates as they appeared on the show.
5. Housemates Discussing Popular Culture We know that they occasionally watch One Piece, and various movies in and out of the house. But you never see them discussing popular culture or sports unless it directly relates to their jobs and aspirations.  Interestingly, the panel is much freer in that regard and they often contextualize what is happening within the house in terms of other shows and, occasionally, pop-songs. The panel serves a collective psychopomp escorting the spirit of what happens in the highly circumscribed reality of the housemates as they are presented into a much wider world of culture and experience.
6. Casual Friends Dropping by the House This fact is perhaps the furthest deviation from a more normal existence. Terrace House is not Big Brother: housemates go out into the world and can even voluntarily leave the show. But Terrace House is, nevertheless, isolated. It's a big deal when a family member or former Terrace House personality crosses that doorway and enters the space. No one on Terrace House ever has a friend come over or even pick them up for an activity.
7. House Parties There is, in fact, one such party early on in B&GND, but for the most part the housemates are never shown using these multi-million dollar homes to host a party. There may be pools at the B&GITC and AS houses, but you'll never see anyone outside the house in them. It would not be hard to have PAs at the door getting releases as people come in and licensed music playlists or aspiring bands given a song on-screen. Other shows can and do feature larger social events in their living spaces, but not here on Terrace House. The housemates are required to be monks and nuns of romantic possibilities or, at least, vocational goals and must focus their devotions thereon whilst on the show apparently.
8. Casual Text Oh, there's always the chalk-board for notifications and allocating chores. And Makoto does smoke and brood over his phone in that one scene. And there are occasional notes and goodbye letters. And, of course, a "coward" written on an omelet, as you do. But, by and large, the communication between the housemates never occurs via the written word or by texting. The producers almost certainly want and need things verbalized, and so there are no screen-shots even when there are texts essential to the narrative. Instead, a housemate must say what happened out loud or it does not happen in the context of the show.
9. Panel Insets As far as I can tell, commentators are relatively common on Japanese and other Asian TV, but they are frequently shown as insets commenting and reacting simultaneously with the action on the screen. This technique is more commonly used for comedic commentary and certainly draws focus away from the main screen. It is shocking in B&GND when You and Tori are inset during the introduction of the newer panelists, but it's understandable: the panel is the comedic universe and the house is the dramatic universe of the show.
10. Household Product Placement There are the cars, of course. But this show is not brought to you by green tea Kit Kats or Zojirushi rice cookers. The show gleefully leverages and endorses celebrities, bands, magazines and restaurants, but it is not a show which pushes consumer wares. The focus is on what the housemates can do with their lives and not on what they buy. They are certainly interested in fashion and style, but they are interested in way that excludes the blaring advertisement of pedestrian consumerism.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Beyond Heteronormitivity

So far on Terrace House there have been no openly LGB housemates (I'm setting aside trans issues for the purposes of this discussion). We do know that Makoto has appeared in a gay sex video, but we do not know how he self-identifies. As of the conclusion of Aloha State, there have been 55 cast members on the 180 episodes of the show. The Real World had 252 cast members across its 32 seasons and 33 of those were LGB though a few of those came out after their appearance.

Terrace House seems to be progressive compared to traditional Japanese social values; nevertheless, since an important part of the show is the potential for romance between the housemates, I initially suspected that the show would never be interested in casting any openly LGB housemates. However, Terrace House's production company made the first broadcast live-action drama centered on a lesbian relationship on Japanese TV: Transit Girls. In fact, the director of that series was the director of the Terrace House feature film. Thus, it would seem that the producers are aware of LGB issues and what on-screen representations can mean for that community. And so I'm going to take a look here at what having LGB housemates might mean for the show's potential romance story-lines, and the answer is that it would probably not have much effect one way or another.

This discussion will be a little mathy, but the numbers are pretty simple. With three men and three woman there are nine possible MW pairings (3 men x 3 women). You might initially think that having an entire cast of bisexuals would explode the number of possible pairings, but, in fact, that highly unlikely scenario would not even double the number of possible pairings. Among that number of men and woman there are only three possible MM pairings and three possible WW pairings, and so the total number of pairings in a fully bisexual cast is fifteen.

In fact, if you include cast-mates who are exclusively same-sex oriented, the number of possible pairings gets reduced in general because there are only two other members of the same sex in contrast to three of the other sex. Thus, having one gay or lesbian house mate would reduce the number of potential matches within the house from nine to six since that person would have no one to date within the house.

These numbers are not an argument against LGB representation on the show. Terrace House has functioned perfectly well when the number of potential relationships has been reduced. The original run of the show started with one male housemate who had a girlfriend outside the show and a female idol who could not have a relationship, and so while Tetsuya did try to go out with Rie there were really only four viable potential pairings at the start of show.

I'd like to see LGB representation on the show, but I do not think that doing so would have much effect on the in-house romance story-lines. I do encourage anyone who is interested in these issues to check out Transit Girls which is available with English subtitles at kissasian.ch. That show will give you lots of warm-fuzzies if you support the idea of LGB representation and inclusion and would like to see a Terrace House-like version of it.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Taishi and the Death of Courtly Love

Taishi came to Terrace House with a wooden sword and a heraldic motto: "Shinuhodo No Koi". There's ample evidence that he sees himself in his arc through Aloha State as being on a quest to find a romantic ideal: a love worth dying for. He transforms the show to be the setting for his quest, and the show is willing to follow because it's all about the points of view that housemates have about romance. However, Taishi's idea of love is a one-sided corruption of an ideal of courtly love which is patriarchal and ill-suited to a meeting of equals to begin with.

The ideal of a knight and his lady in the West arose as reaction to severe restrictions on marriage particularly among the nobility of Europe. Marriages were arranged and purely transactions intended to increase the status and power of families and clans. Of course, extra-marital affairs flourished, and were policed by society and the Church. But alongside those traditional family values the troubadours began to sing of a revolutionary new kind of love: one that required no physical consummation and acknowledged an individual agency for both men and women that had been previously forbidden by the culture.

The romantic love of the troubadours was one of selfless service of a knight to his lady. Through the formal process of winning a lady's heart both the knight and lady were able exert choice and control of their emotional lives that they were not available in their familial lives. The knight would perform deeds of valor to win tokens and boons of affection from a women with whom he could not otherwise interact. As a result, even in the romances of that period the emotional interactions were over-examined and overblown.

Taishi is not seeking that kind of love, really, though he might see himself as doing so. Note well that he seeks to find that love worth dying for instead being or becoming a love worth dying for. He is looking outside himself for a transformation that has to occur within himself. Robert Bly (in his book Iron John) calls the ideal that Taishi seeks "the golden-haired one" - it is a projection of the ideal feminine attributes within the man onto the perceived persona of another. There is nothing inherently wrong with that projection: it's a stage of development that almost all men must go through as they learn to have mature relationships with the real human woman in their lives (and, of course, most women go through a similar process in their relationships to men).

And so Taishi's approach is a corruption of courtly love in that he does not sacrifice his interests for the sake of a lady. Instead, he tests each woman to see how well his projections fit his ideals, and when they do not he moves on to the next woman. He often creates wonderful romantic settings for the tests, but it's ultimately never about that warm, living human being (even Anna!) he's taking out. Instead, it's all about whether he can fall for this person with only the barest acknowledgement that they might want to fall for him or that it might matter if they do (Laruen and again Anna).

Courtly love is, ultimately patriarchal. In the world of courtly love, men get to act and women get to react. It is not a meeting of equals opening outward to greater complexity and nestling inward to greater intimacy as equals. Taishi seeks to perfect the way he acts (holding doors and seating his dates) so that his dates might react in ways that match the feminine ideals that are inside himself. I'm not saying that his objectification of the women he takes out would prevent him from getting to know them as people, but it certainly would make doing so much more difficult.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Group Living

Shared houses have been a common setting of reality TV in the US since the The Real World, and, perhaps, the creators of Terrace House were looking to the West as they started this series back in 2012. However, shared houses are not necessarily a common form of housing in general in Japan. In fact, Hansan and Arisa were interviewed for a short YouTube documentary about shared living after the show and Part 1 was thoughtfully translated by someone on reddit (the user name has since been deleted - I'd love to give them credit). And it's fairly clear from that interview and the tone of show that the produces would like to promote the idea that shared houses can be a stylish and enjoyable way of living which should become more popular in Japan.

As Hansan and Arisa say on the topic in this documentary:

H: It seems sharehouses used to be for foreigners who moved here for work to live together. It started as so-called ‘foreigner houses’. It was not stylish at all, it was just chosen because it was cheap. But now I believe it has this designer-thingy going on. Because it is stylish, people opts for a sharehouse, not just because it is cheap.

A: Because people can’t live by themselves, but they can live in a stylish sharehouse.

H: I thing their popularity will only expand. Now people assume it is just for people who would live alone, but it can form new families and provide interaction between different generations living together.

And, indeed, there is some indication that the show has sparked a trend towards shared houses in Japan.  See, for instance, this article from a month ago in which a journalist tries living in one.

I lived in shared houses in college through grad-school. This was my Terrace House:

It was a seven person house in Palo Alto. Three of us were in grad-school and the rest were twenty-somethings working in the early parts of their careers. Importantly, we all agreed to share the cooking which, I believe, is truly key to a quality shared house. We'd each take a night, and prepare the meal, and everyone had their own approach. Jim would go to a store and just pick whatever ingredients that struck him that day. He was a decent cook, and I never had a bad meal from him, but, apparently, a year or two before he tried to make a casserole with bananas and eggplant that was so bad that everyone immediately got up from the table and started making sandwiches. Susan said it was like eating snot.

Terrace House does not tend to organize itself to the same extent. We do see them sharing meals, and most cooking tends to be done by the women though the men do get brought into process over time. Both Uchi and Taishi seem to be fairly comfortable contributing in the kitchen, to be fair. But except for special occasions, there do not appear to regular shared meals in any permutations of the house. My impression is that Hana on B&GND may have cooked quite a bit more than most housemates - she seemed to enjoy it and was excellent at it.

The other constant issue that group houses have to address is keeping the house clean. I suspect that with all the white carpeting in the houses, that the show does provide some house keeping. But it's also clear in AS that the cast are in charge of their bathrooms, and in BxGND there is at least one house meeting around taking out the trash. The younger members of the house may have never had to deal with cleaning, and so, like all shared house, there has been some conflict around the general level of cleanliness.

The one real disadvantage that the members of Terrace House have in comparison to people living in similar situations in, shall we say, the real world is that they have no control over who gets to join the house. At my favorite house finding new housemates was a consensus process and everyone had to agree to a new housemate. In fact, if you planned to veto a member during an interview, you were to say, "I'm thirsty: can I get you some water" which was a signal to the rest of the members to wrap up the interview. Terrace House members know that they're likely to get someone attractive as a new housemate, but that's about it which much surely add some additional stress on top of the expectations for romantic story lines.

The various called house meetings on the show are very true to what happens in real life. Situations arise and need to be resolved (and almost no one gets to have a Hansan to artfully mediate disputes). Such meetings can be uncomfortable, but often they also pull people closer as group.

Terrace House is, to some extent, style-porn for shared living. The show is aspirational, and presents a cool way of life that some people may not realize is a possibility. Shared living can be occasionally contentious, but it also can be hugely rewarding. I like that one of the secret agendas of the show is bringing the advantages of shared houses to the attention of a wider audience.

Terrace House, A Deeper Dive: Uchi v Taishi

There was a pivotal moment for me in Episode 15 of Boys and Girls In the City: the panel reacts to Uchi and Minori's new relationship by mentioning that they are the fourth couple in the show's history. Yes, that's right: 114 weekly episodes had led to four couples at that point. Doesn't Bachelor in Paradise have like four hook-ups per episode? (I've never seen an episode of Bachelor in Paradise.) Is there any wonder that Japan has the third lowest birth rate in the world? One of the theses implicitly supported by the show is that courtship should be easier and more casual in Japanese culture, and part of that support is seen in the framing and reaction to Uchi's and Taishi's strategy "of ask them all out".

There are a lot of patriarchal rules around dating in this show (and, presumably, current Japanese culture in general), and many of those rules are similar to the rules in the West not too long ago. Terrace House, in this respect, sometimes feels a bit like a dire dating etiquette educational film from the Forties or Fifties in the US. Only guys can initiate dates. Women are encouraged to reveal any interest indirectly through food. Men are expected to act swiftly and decisively when they've identified the sole woman who has sparked their interest by asking the object of their affection out on successively more romantic dates. Women must demure, at least initially, even if they are interested. Feelings must only be intimated at rather than spoken from both sides. I'm sure those of you with higher EQs than I can add deeper rules to the list where successive layers of potential hurt are anticipated and protected.

It's no wonder that Tokui's reaction to B&GND was to host a softcore parody of Terrace House called Pero Pero House ("Happy House") as part of an ongoing series of comedy specials for an Adult satellite channel. The joke. from what I can tell, of the first one, for instance, is that one of the girls gives head one at a time to all of the guys while in an adjacent room the remaining housemates are doing the usual "What's your type?" initial maneuvering.

And so it is interesting when Uchi declares his week, and Taishi declares that he is going to keep trying to find his "love worth dying for" even when he is mocked as a guilty samurai and later dressed down by Cheri for not being clear to all the girls he's asked out. They are breaking some of the rules of social etiquette and doing seems to facilitate the process more directly even if it's a bit self serving. To their credit, they both seem interested in tailoring the dates to the individual women.

The larger issue that all these kerfuffles hide is the almost complete lack of agency (at least, in terms of their romantic life) that is granted to the women on the show. The women do occasionally ask out the men on the show, but it's much rarer. Minori's writing "coward" is probably the strongest act of self-determination in these matters that we see on the show until Cheri pops in from an American reality show and asks out Eric directly (which I found refreshing).

There is also an apparently patriarchal bias in the casting of the romantically unavailable housemates. It's hard to argue a trend from four instances, but, thus far, the two unavailable males I've seen (Shoto in B&GND and Hansan in B&GITC) have girlfriends and the two unavailable females (Rie in B&GND and Riko in B&GITC) have jobs which contractually preclude them from forming a sexual relationship. There's no real equivalent for men in Japanese culture as far as I know (Maybe a Buddhist priest? Are there hot young Zen masters?), but why not cast a young woman with a current boyfriend?

Terrace House as a franchise seems to support the idea that dating should be easier in Japanese culture. Certainly, doing so publicly on a television show that can be watched by your fellow housemates must only make dating more difficult. While I liked Aloha State, I'm fairly sure that a physical move to the West and towards more Western Reality TV tropes is not the right solution for this show. What we really need is a female version of Uchi and Taishi in the next cast: a Wonder Woman to Uchi and Taishi's Batman and Superman. (Or is that what Seina became? Those of us waiting for the fansubs will see eventually, I suppose.)

Terrace House, A Deeper Dive: The Dark Side

So, this week the news spread that Makoto had done a porn scene. That fact is tawdry and sad. As reasonable consumers of reality TV and of this mostly wholesome show in particular, we mostly wish the cast members well. Part of our engagement in Terrace House is seeing these people succeed, not only in the relationships they explore and create while on the show but also in their lives outside the show. We all cheer when Guy wins the tournament in Bali. But the news about Makoto is not the only touch of scandal the show and its cast has experienced. Reality TV has its dark side and part of that arises from how these shows are structured and created.

Thanks to Google Translate, it's not hard to take a look at the news stories that have focused on the show in Japan where it's far more popular (simply copy and paste テラスハウス into your browser.) Late in the original run (BGND) a producer was accused of sexually harassing one of the house members. There has been no evidence before or after the accusation that such harassment occurred. A similar rumor surfaced in the first run that cast members have been offered significant amounts of money for love-confessions and kisses on screen.

Producer manipulation is an inevitable part of any reality TV show. I am fairly sure that the house members are being paid to be on the show. It is likely that some of that payment only comes after the episodes are released: such an approach is a time-tested and effective way to enforce the kinds of NDAs which are necessary to prevent spoilers and maintain interest in the show.

However, it's highly unlikely that cast members are being paid for particular story lines. The housemates know that the producers want stories, and they know that their screen-time will depend on being able to provide story lines. Because the show has no confessionals, I suspect that the housemates interact far less with the production staff than other similar shows.

However, it is clear that no dates, scenes or group events at private venues occur without alerting the production staff ahead of time since releases must be signed (at least in the US) for everyone who appears on screen. Most small businesses are happy to accommodate the show since the advertising is more than enough to compensate for clearing parts of the venue for an hour or two. I do pity the production assistant that had to reach out to all the restaurants that Yusuke made reservations for in the hopes that Lauren would go the dinner with him after the movie.

I do think that other than the location management, the production staff is fairly hands off. They almost certainly arrange the various previous member cameos that happen, but I doubt that they are meeting with the house members frequently and suggesting things to do or say. I suspect that the housemates spend far more time with the tech who is putting on and taking off their mics as they enter and leave the house and replacing batteries as necessary.

I do think it is likely that there is some mild pressure from the production in some situations for some house members to leave the show. I do think any couples which form are expected to leave reasonably quickly to make room for more stories.

Another dark side of the show has been its relationship to Japanese Idol culture. Terrace House has had idols on the show at least twice. I can see why they did so in the first run. It was a way to increase the cachet of the cast as whole by including a successful member of AKB48 in the house. However, idols are contractually forbidden to date in the Japanese idol industry. That fact is hugely sexist and problematic. It also places pressures on the young women in that position who appear on this show that no other housemates have had to face. Rie handled those pressures like a pro. Riko did not, and I actually sympathize with both Hayato and Riko in that situation. The show's choosing to cast any idol is problematic when so much of the focus of the show is on developing romantic relationships. I think the show is hoping for a line where an idol will sacrifice her career for the sake of love which is some particularly foul patriarchal bullshit right there.

It's easy to dismiss the idol issue as something that's only a part of current Japanese culture. However, it was not that long ago in US culture when Brittany Spears' loss of virginity was similarly suppressed. Just because we have not formalized the idol creation process in the same way as Japan does not mean that it is easy for young female pop stars in the US to navigate similar sexist marketing issues.

The surface of Terrace House is one of clean architectural lines, stylish clothing and food porn. Always remember, however, that it is a show, and despite the mantra of "no script at all" there are dark currents under that surface.

Terrace House, a Deeper Dive: Romance and Beyond

I like the fact that Terrace House is not entirely about romance. I know that much of the narrative drive and fan interest in the show derives from the inevitable romantic arcs. But what makes Terrace House great is the fact that it is not a crass hook-up show built solely to generate conflict and drama through the complications of heteronormative sex. The show is relentlessly heteronormative and cisgendered, but what makes it interesting is that the tone of the show conveys an implicit critique of Japanese dating norms. And part of that critique is revealed through the casting of the house members.

In Western reality TV and in the US in particular, cast members are often selected for their potential to generate conflict and drama. I blame MTV's selection of Puck back in Real World Season 3 in 1994. We see the trope of the reality TV star who is "not here to make friends" through to the most recent incarnation of The Bachelorette.

The cast of Terrace House is not selected for their potential to create conflict (though not always their abilities to make friends, Tap). A few have created conflict and have been given a heel-edit, but, as far as I can tell, the members are chosen for their physical attractiveness and their potential to expand their personal brand-awareness and collaterally the brand-awareness of the Terrace House franchise. That's why we have seen so many models, artists and athletes.

It's also why the show has had so many hafu members. Half-Japanese people are disproportionately over-represented in the cast of the Netflix seasons of the show and in Japanese media in general. Certainly, part of that impetus towards more diverse casting is Netflix' desire to see the show succeed outside of Japan. But I think the show is, in part, a reaction to the fact that Japan has an extremely low birth rate and an extremely homogeneous population. The show is looking outward from Japan and seeks to expand what is acceptable and normal for dating relationships.

Of course, there is some danger of objectification, exoticism and even fetishism in this approach. But the glacial pacing of the dating on this show does let us get to know these characters as people first well before the extreme salaciousness of that first holding of hands. The panel also helps to lampshade and critique the dating norms of Japanese culture with Yama often representing the traditional, patriarchal viewpoints and having those viewpoints roundly dismissed by the rest of the panel. I do not think that the show particularly admires or desires Western hook-up culture as a model, but you do not include a former host of Handjob Karaoke on the panel (Tokui, if you did not know) without at least some impulse towards a more open and sex-positive approach to dating. The Japanese Room is hidden until the moment of romantic commitment, but then it's astonishingly available, accepted and even celebrated.

Terrace House undoubtedly desires and encourages successful romances for its cast members. Every nuance of every date is teased apart and deconstructed by the panel. It's clearly one focus of the show. However, always remember that there have been a few cast member in committed relationships outside the show since its first incarnation in Japan, and, of course, Hansan is almost universally well-regarded despite the fact he was in such a relationship. Terrace House is a dating show, but it's so much more than that, and I intend to explore those aspects of the show more deeply in future posts.