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.
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Saturday, December 09, 2017
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
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.
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:
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.
Sunday, December 03, 2017
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.
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.
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