2001 -

Distributor: Too Far East
Documentary (sort of)

- Reviewed by Linda

If anyone had walked in on us the night that my friends and I watched this video, they probably would have called 911 immediately. I mean, what would you think if you saw a couch-full of people silently clutching their stomachs, as though in pain, rocking back and forth and writhing, with tears running down their cheeks? No, it was not food poisoning from the scarfed-down pizza, but it was the absolutely infectious joy of Japanarama! Psycho TV From Japan!

I read about this video in a weekly alternative magazine that praised its glory with so many delightful adjectives that my curiosity was piqued, and I ordered it off the internet. Oh. My. God. Talk about party fun!

The Japanese have been famous (or infamous) for their horrifically cruel TV game shows (I've heard that the censors more recently have forced them to tone it down). Once the Simpsons even spoofed these shows when our beloved cartoon family was trapped in Japan and had to win a trip home by being dunked in a volcano or fed to live sharks or some such thing. And the thing is, judging from this tape, that's not far from the reality of Japanese "reality" TV.

In this first volume of Japanarama! you'll see snippets of such TV shows where:

• Loved ones of the contestant have to answer questions in order to keep their man from being flung over a cliff on a bungee cord. I laughed till I cried as one guy's grandma failed to answer a question about a Japanese pop star, and giggled as her grandson was flung off the cliff screaming, "OBAASAN!" as he catapulted through the air until he was a speck in the distance.

• Big-time wrestlers humiliate 98-pound weaklings who try to challenge them in the ring. The skinny guys are flung out of the ring onto a metal electric plate where they scream and flop, or onto a platform of glue where they stick like helpless flies.

• Contestants have to sit in a tub of near-boiling water to gain air-time to advertise their product. For every second they tolerate the water (before leaping out in pain and rubbing ice all over their bodies), they are allowed a second of time to say as much as possible about their product before a door unceremoniously slams in their face.

And that is just a sampling.... There is much much more, including never-seen-on-these-shores TV commercials of Western stars plugging Japanese products. Mel! Madonna! Brad! And even Janet Jackson, who, by our untrained ears, had the most impressive spoken Japanese!

There are hardly any subtitles in Japanarama!, but that is just fine. It makes the watching experience all the more surreal, as you really have no idea what the hell is going on until you see the misery wreaked upon these poor (and willing) individuals. But I'll say, this 2-hour compilation of game show clips, even without explanation, made me laugh harder than any comedy I've seen all year. Seek this one out, and play it at your next party!

[See also our review of the companion videos Volume 2 and Volume 3.]

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