TV in Japan

I first got a glimpse of Kasou Taishou on a flight to Tokyo last year.

It was an awful, early moment in the morning. I realized I was never really going to get to sleep and the movie had already finished. The laptop battery was dead. I hadn't had a chance to pick up a book and after driving from Northern British Columbia to Vancouver to catch the plane I really wasn't in the mood to read any of the longer articles in Harper's.

Then, at what was something like 3:30 AM, Kasou Tashou flickered to life on the screen in front of me.

It's hard to describe if you've never seen it (so obviously go see it) but were I forced to say exactly what it is I might say this: Kasou Taishou is Kabuki Theater that's been throughly masticated by modern Japanese daily life.

I might also call it amazing.

As far as I can tell (from my exhaustive internet research), it's a Japanese talent show that airs on Nippon Television a couple of times a year. There's also some sort of ranking mechanism that happens after each performance which in some way signifies how the competitors will do.

Here's the official website.

Here's some videos from the offical website.

Of course lots and lots of videos are out there on the internet.

Here's a great one.



If you see another awesome one, let me know and I'll throw it up here.