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I Survived a Japanese Game Show

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.208.233.64 (talk) at 02:22, 10 July 2009 (Corrected the meaning of "Majide" as the host (don't know his name) explained during the premiere of Season 2.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

I Survived a Japanese Game Show
ABC's Season One promotional logo.
GenreReality Television;
Game Show
Created byDavid Sidebotham;
Karsten Bartholin
(also executive producers)
Directed byKent Weed
StarringTony Sano
(TV host, Season 1)
Rome Kanda
(Majide Host)[1]
Narrated byRobert Cait
Country of originUnited States USA
(broadcast);
Denmark Denmark
(program format)
Original languagesEnglish; some Japanese with English subtitles.
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes7 (Season 1);
10 (Season 2)
Production
Executive producersArthur Smith;
Kent Weed;
Tim Cresenti
Production locationTokyo, Japan
Running timeapprox. 60 min.
Original release
NetworkABC
ReleaseJune 24, 2008 –
present

I Survived a Japanese Game Show (originally titled Big In Japan [2]) is an American reality show that saw its first season premiere on ABC June 24, 2008. The show follows a group of Americans, who leave the United States for Japan where they compete in a Japanese style game show.[3][4] The winner takes home US $250,000.[5] The series won the both the Best Reality prize and the overall prize at the 2009 Rose d'Or ceremony.[6]

Season 2, which was supposed to have premiered on July 8, was moved up to June 17 at and debuted that night at 9PM EDT/PDT. The rating is TV-PG (L) for all shows.

Format

See also Big in Japan (format)

In Season One, contestants are informed that they are to take part in a reality-style competition, but not informed of the nature of the show. They are flown to Tokyo, Japan, and taken to the Toho Studios, where it is revealed that they are to compete on a Japanese game show called Majide (本気で). For Season Two, Majide host Rome Kanda surprised each of the contestants in their hometowns informing them they were going to Japan. They are broken up into teams and, in the first six episodes of Season One and first nine episodes of Season Two, compete in games against each other. The winning team is given a reward activity while the losing team is given a punishment activity. In the second season, the first game played saw the winning team have an advantage into the second game, where rewards and punishments were handed out afterward. Two members of the losing team are chosen to compete in a additional game head-to-head where the loser of that game is eliminated. In the final part, the teams are broken up and the four remaining players face three elimination challenges; in all cases, the losing contestant is eliminated from the show and carried offstage and sent back to the United States by the "sayonara mob" (脱落`者决定)！, dressed in black suits.

The series follows not only the Majide competition, but also the contestants' activities backstage and outside the game show in reality style. The contestants live in a house (Kasai House) together, with a Mama-san (Kozue Saito), who generally expects the contestants to live in line with Japanese culture and customs.

The host of season one was Japanese-American Tony Sano, whose additional television credits include MTV Spring Break Japan and a recurring role on the The CW4Kids series '''Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight''' . [7] About the show, Sano commented, "It's going to be like nothing American audiences have seen on network television" (Matt Hurwitz, Associated Press) [8] Episodes are narrated by Robert Cait.

The show is produced by A. Smith & Co. Productions (the producers of Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares in the USA) with Arthur Smith, Kent Weed of A. Smith and Co. and Tim Cresenti of Small World International Format Television as executive producers and Weed directing, and is distributed by Disney/ABC's Greengrass Productions division. The format was created by Danish producers Karsten Bartholin and David Sidebothin for Babyfoot Aps, and was originally titled Big in Japan.

Majide

Majide (which is Japanese vernacular for "yes, you gotta be crazy!"), the show-within-the-show, is not an actual Japanese game show, but is intended to resemble what a stereotypical Japanese game show is like.[9] The American producers watched hours of these Japanese game shows, took the most common elements and created all of the games, with help from producers in Japan, who also produced the game segments at Toho Studios.[10] In contrast to many American game shows, which are usually based on either trivia (such as Jeopardy!) or mental skill (like The Price is Right), Japanese game shows tend to be more physically oriented, such as Takeshi's Castle. The Nickelodeon game show Double Dare was a hybrid of both the American and Japanese styles.

Majide is hosted by Rome Kanda[11] and judged by Masahiro Hurugori, known on the show as Judge Bobu (Bob). Kanda has translated "Majide" (マジで) as "You've got to be crazy!"

Seasons

Season One

Main article: I Survived a Japanese Game Show (season 1)

Season one premiered on June 24, 2008. It was hosted by Tony Sano. It ran for seven episodes and on August 5, 2008, Justin Wood was pronounced the winner.

Season Two

Main article: I Survived a Japanese Game Show (season 2)

The second season premiered June 17, 2009 at 9 PM US EDT/PDT on ABC and is scheduled to feature ten episodes instead of seven. Tony Sato did not return to host. In addition, the number of contestants increased from ten to twelve, and there are two team games per episode instead of one. The team that wins the first team game is given an advantage in the second. Two members of the team that loses the second game play an elimination game; the loser is escorted out of the game by the Sayonara Mob. The show faces three other reality contests: America's Got Talent on NBC, So You Think You Can Dance? on Fox, Hitched or Ditched on The CW and reruns of Criminal Minds on CBS. In the first week, it faced Law and Order on NBC; the reason the season started earlier (as opposed to the original July 8 date) was the date and time change of Mike Judge's The Goode Family to Fridays at 8:30 PM ET/PT due to lower than expected ratings on Wednesdays.

International formats

Besides the USA, fifteen other countries have bought this format.[12] The American version of this show is airing in Denmark on TV 3+, New Zealand's TV2, Singapore's Channel 5, the Philippines' Studio 23, Sweden's TV6, Slovenia's TV3 Slovenia and Portugal's SIC Radical. The Greek version of the show (under the original name Big In Japan) airs on Alpha TV.In Malaysia 8tv, Fridays 10:30pm

Other versions

Sweden

In 2009, Sweden began airing its own version of the show called Hjälp! Jag är med i en japansk TV-show (Help! I'm in a Japanese television show) with Swedish celebrities competing against each other. The show was produced and aired by TV4.
The Swedish version was also recorded in the Toho Studios but didn't include Tony Sano, Masahiro Hurugori and Rome Kanda. Instead, the show was narrated (and sometimes hosted) by Carolina Gynning. The show-within-the-show was not Majide, but Do Konjo and was hosted by Yoshi Amao with Mr. Fu as the judge.

Contestants

  • Kjell Eriksson (radio host) - winner of "Hjälp! Jag är med i en japansk TV-show"
  • Klasse Möllberg (musician, actor) - runner-up
  • Regina Lund (actress, singer) - third place
  • Sandra Dahlberg (artist) - 5th eliminated after episode 8
  • Johannes Brost (actor) - 4th eliminated after episode 7
  • Dogge Doggelito (artist) - Left the show after episode 6
  • Anna Book (artist) - 3rd eliminated after episode 6
  • Marie Picasso (artist) - 2nd eliminated after episode 4
  • Tore Kullgren (TV-profile) - 1st eliminated after episode 1

The winner of the final episode of "Hjälp! Jag är med i en japansk TV-show" was Kjell Eriksson, against runner-up Klasse Möllberg.

Norway

A Norwegian version of the Swedish format has also been aired by the Norwegian network TV3

References

  1. ^ What's New from Rome Kanda's official website
  2. ^ SmallWorld IFT
  3. ^ "Show: "I Survived a Japanese Game Show," ABC, June 24"". The Los Angeles Times. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ Chuck Barney (2008-06-04). "Summer TV preview". The Mercury News. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  5. ^ I Survived A Japanese Game Show
  6. ^ "Rose d'Or Winners 2009" (PDF). Rose d'Or AG. 2009-05-06. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  7. ^ (www.tonysano.com)
  8. ^ [1].
  9. ^ I Survived A ‘Japanese’ Game Show | Japan Probe
  10. ^ Q&A: Tony Sano of I Survived a Japanese Game Show
  11. ^ "J!-ENT SPECIAL INTERVIEW with ROME KANDA by J!-ENT's Dennis A. Amith" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-09-19.
  12. ^ Babyfoot Aps web site.
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