Talk shows here are mindblowing.

The television that they gave us is pathetic.  Those are my glasses next to it, for comparison.  This sad, 11" Sharp TV must have been made 20 years ago.  It can only receive about a dozen channels.  We've mucked with it as much as we could, and it's true.  It caps at 12 remembered channels at a time.  Two are repeats.  On top of that, the channel is always present in the top left corner in 90's neon green.  It does, however, have a remote control.

I wasn't kidding, you can only have 12 channels.  No, you can't make combinations by pushing two buttons, either simultaneously or in sequence.  This means we're stuck with only a few channels when we're bored at night, so we take what we can get.


Getting used to what comes on at night here took no time at all.  It's all pretty much the same thing.  Baseball.  Detective dramas.  Ancient anime reruns.  Awkward news programs with the most rigid newscasters in the world.  "Fun news" shows that round up a gaggle of this month's big entertainment personalities, show them clips found from Reddit's humor subsection, and showing us their reactions.  Doesn't that sound like the pinnacle of broadcast entertainment?


It should!  It is!  At no point, when the television is on, are we not glued to the action.  It's even better because I have only the faintest grasp as to what's going on.  For instance, one of the first nights we popped it on, we came across a talk show that featured the girl group Perfume.  Not even a few minutes in, the show goes from a little strange to outright bizarre.  I luckily found the episode in question.  Have a taste of Japanese television.  It gets crazy around 4:13. 





There's a part of me that really wants to buy a new TV.  Honestly, anything would be an improvement.  I've seen TVs that blow this one away for $50 back in the states.  That's how low the bar has been set.  How can I be expected to properly enjoy shows like this on a set that we can barely hear?





Oh...with subtitles.  That's a thing here.  All the important things people say, or, in the case of shows like this, the punchlines, are written out.  What you miss is the fun sound effects and bunny's creepy voice.  Such a loss.


That's it.  Tomorrow, we go to Bic Camera and get ourselves a TV that can withstand shows of this magnitude of awesome.


PS: Enough discussion has been made about Japanese commercials on the internet that I'd rather not retread such well covered ground.  It's rather well documented, so even a cursory look online will yield something hilarious.  30 seconds on YouTube and I could find this:


 


Go check it out sometime.