The Seven Great Electronic Wonders of the world surely includes ‘Japanese television’. As good an introduction as any to the delights contained within, is the splendourific : TVinjapan.com. (The Japanarama compilation is another, introduced to me by the Mu-Meson Archivers ). TV in Japan web curator, and supervising producer of ‘Attack of the Show’ TV series in the states, Gavin Purcell, does the email ping pong:
What’s unique about japanese TV and what attracts to it?
Japanese TV is like some sort of odd looking glass, it’s like all the stuff western TV is yet twisted with this very wicked and oddball sensibility. The Japanese (even famous Japanese) have very little problem with looking goofy – it humanizes them a bit to others. Which I find infinitely cool.
3 things burnt into your eyeballs, impossible to see on any other national television?
The whole Gaki No Tsukai stuff – my favorite scene is the classroom where the students are famous comedians and they must not laugh or they’ll get beat.
The Zuikken English girls – women who do aerobics to teach English. I think they’ve travelled the worldwide internet now which was an interesting thing to see as the guy who originally posted them to youtube had emailed me specifically about them. That’s one of the coolest parts of TV-in-Japan that I definitely get to get in on the ground floor of somethings that ultimately blow up pretty big.
And the Chimpan News Channel – am totally obsessed with monkeys. Always have been, always will. A show made ‘For Animals, By Animals’ and hosted by a chimpanzee named “Gomes Chambalain’ was totally made with me in mind. I love how he has other monkeys working for him as well.
( Anyone who has ever seen some of my VJing, will understand my grinning to this – jp )
Based on various gameshows, the Japanese seem to really enjoy public humiliation. Can you explain?
Well, I think it might have something to do with that in some way the humiliation makes them human. After all, everyone has experienced humiliation at one point in there life and can relate. I know for sure I can.
What lessons can be learnt about Japanese sexuality by watching their TV?
I don’t feel qualified enough to answer this question. Sorry.
Presumably your site earns enough advertising to cover costs, so how do you feel building a site out of copyrighted material, and how do you feel about copyright in the case of tv clips?
Ultimately, what I do is a relatively grey area. No, I don’t own the clips and yes I do make some (very little) profit from the posting of them. However, I personally don’t host the clips, I embed them from YouTube and therefore I’m really just pointing to places to find them. Yes, that’s a little bit of a cop out, but I truly feel I’m bringing value to the table as someone willing to sort through junk and separate out the cool stuff. It’s for a select audience but definitely an audience that cares about the stuff and would totally buy it if available to them. I’d love to get in contact with all of the Japanese production companies – I’m sure I could help them sell a TON of DVDs. I constantly have requests for Pythagoras Switch on DVD!
Given the Japanese love of gadgets and technology, surely there must be plenty of wild Japanese netcasts online – do u watch any, or does tv still dominate?
I have yet to see many netcasts at all out of Japan, however I imagine that could be partially because I speak so little of the language. However, I did read (maybe at the awesome Neomarxisme blog) that the Japanese are still very tied to the idea of the television production companies the ‘the producer’ and haven’t glommed onto the whole user-generated media thing yet. However, I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff out there I have not idea exists.
How do u feel about Google’s acquisition of youtube?
I feel all right. Actually, check that, as a web entrepreneur myself, I feel great for the YouTube guys. I’m still not sure how it’s going to affect the service (or TV in Japan) but I think the bigger it gets the better. The amount of clips per day keeps going up which is great for everyone.
How has YouTube’s policies affected your site?
The 30,000 Japanese clips coming down was a bummer but it’s been happening since the beginning of the website. The hard part is that it means that a lot of my posts now are without the video reference within them. It really sucks when you write up a long post about something really cool only to go back a few weeks later to find they’ve taken down the clips – eg my long post on the Japanese TV show Shimokita Glory Days. I did a lot of research and wrote up a lengthy article which I felt did a very good job of describing the show when accompanied with the clips I posted. Now, those clips have been removed and it’s much harder to understand. That sucks.
Destiny obviously has you as a gameshow host wearing an animal mask, but what are your future plans for the site before then?
I totally see myself there as well. Perhaps, with someone ready to beat me if I can’t stop laughing. Which I so wouldn’t be able to do. Hmmm, future of the site – it’s really hard as it’s ultimately a total labor of love. It’s not easy and it doesn’t make that much money. I’d love to bring a couple more people on as bloggers with me, get a few more posts up per day perhaps and then maybe start selling some cool Japanese things as well. Ultimately, it all comes down to time and as a father, a TV producer and my other secret web project I’m working on, it’s as much as I can do to give myself the hour or two each day to spend on finding the clips. My wife asked me the other day if I thought I’d ever get sick of it and I told her I thought no. I am just a huge fan of weirdness and Japanese TV has that in spades.
Thanks Gavin!