This is the end of an era. Since I washed up on the shores of Western Japan, Mecha Ike has been a constant source of entertainment for me. It was one of my first introductions to Japanese comedy, and was one of the few shows that didn’t seem to base its shows entirely on mean-spiritedness….
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose last name literally translates as “Pigeon Mountain” showed a bit of his comedy stylings at a recent event in Tokyo. Hatoyama has always been a character with a penchant for dancing, eccentricity, and having fun however he’s been uncharacteristically low key so thus far in his tenure. A bit…
I don’t know how popular Moyasimon is in the West, but it is another highly regarded manga/anime that Japan is planning to make into a live action movie. It’s starting to seem like Japanese filmmakers are trying to beat American film makers to the punch. Astro Boy came out in 2009, and there was also…
Here are the winners of the 2009 YouTube Japan Video Awards. There are 7 categories, and the winning videos can be found below. In the MUSIC Category: This is a very cool video, definitely worth watching and definitely deserving of the award. An amazing amount of planning and preparation must have gone into this. SOUR…
The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs has begun broadcasting Japanese network tv stations over the internet using P2P (Peer to Peer) technology. As many newzjapan readers know, the Japanese government has gradually been making an effort to be more of a presence on the internet, including uploading useful videos to YouTube. KeyholeTV is another step…
This comes to us from the same NHK Kids show “Mitsuketa” or “I Found It”. This is the same show that gives us the NHK Kids Show Cactus Character, and also the awesome rock sounds of Tortoise Matsumoto of Ulfuls singing the NHK kids rock song Tamago. Yes, this is a weird old guy in…
A new Kids show called “Mitsuketa” or “I found it” has started up on NHK. For some reason, the show’s main theme is… CHAIRS! There are skits of interactions between a real live girl, a giant talking cactus, and a chair. The cactus plays kind of a fatherly role, settling little arguments between the little…
It seems that Hitoshi Matsumoto was not as forthcoming as he could have been in his press conference yesterday when he described his new bride as “an everyday person”. She is actually a 26 year old (19 years his junior) former tv announcer and television personality named Rin Ihara pictured below. Their baby is due…
Forty-five year old Hitoshi Matsumoto from the Japanese comedic duo “Downtown” has gotten married. The new bride is not in the entertainment industry. Not much has been reported about her except that she is currently pregnant. Many people in the entertainment industry had Matsumoto pegged as a lifelong bachelor, however in a press conference he…
OK, I don’t usually write about Japanese idols or gravure or anything like that, but I think I’ve found one worth writing about. Right not she seems like she wants to do the DVDs and everything, but she is also a talented comedian. I watch most of the comedy shows on tv here in Japan,…
I know, I know, I love these top 10 lists that come out. Even if they don’t mean anything they sure put a little spotlight on Japan for us. This poll is especially fun because if you’ve been here going on fifteen years like some newzjapan bloggers I know, you learned Japanese watching some of…
Takahisa Masuda, member of the Japanese singing group NEWS came on an afternoon tv show to show off his super speed and strength by doing over one hundred push-ups in one minute. They made a little stage for him. Prepared some timers and click-counters and devoted some time on the program to shine. After you…