Japanese TV can kiss my ass

It’s been an absolutely mind-numbing day. I have stuff to process, and yet circumstances beyond my control have kept me cooped up indoors all day. What circumstances, you say? I’m glad you asked.

Japan is widely considered to be one of the safest places in the world. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you just that. Seriously. Go ask someone. Right now. I can wait.

See? I told you so. Anyway, I’ve figured out the reason Japan is so safe: Because everyone here is so busy running from hurricanes and picking up after earthquakes that they don’t have the time or energy left over to mug, kill, and/or rape you. Not that they wouldn’t jump at the chance otherwise.

Today’s main event was Typhoon No. 22, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan so far this year. Lets just stop and digest that for a second: This is the 22nd typhoon to hit Japan this year, and I believe most of them have occured during the summer. What other natural disaster strikes that many times in the span of a couple months?

So now we’ve got torrential rains and gale-force winds picking up heavy shit like cars and elephants, and hurling them at fragile shit like people and china stores. Whoop-de-freakin’-do. I’ve been stuck inside all day watching TV, and here’s some real news for you: Japanese TV is crap.

That was the sound of a million nerds’ jaws hitting the floor. Yes, I said it. Maybe I’m just not watching TV at the right time, or maybe we just don’t get the right channels, but there was maybe one show on all day that wasn’t abysmal dreck.

There are actually very few kinds of shows on Japanese TV. I will now list them to the best of my ability.

News

Especially when natural disaster strikes, which is always, almost every channel you turn to is news, and they all report on exactly the same thing in the exact same manner.

Infomercial

A lot of people might misclassify the majority of so-called comedy shows as “variety.” They are not actually variety shows. They are glorified infomercials where celebrities (advertisement!) walk around a certain town (advertisement!) and eat at local restaurants (advertisement!) and visit tourist traps (advertisement!) and then talk about how delicious and fun and wonderful everything was. Gouge my eyes out now, please.

Drama

There are crappy sentimental dramas, and there are crappy period dramas. I highly doubt that even Japanese people understand the period dramas, and the sentimental dramas are the TV equivalent of every romantic comedy ever made rolled into one, minus the comedy, and with an unhealthy dose of angst. The only amusement they provide is the tidal waves of swooning women who lust after the male lead of the latest sappy series. Some of them get so nuts that they go on tours to re-enact famous scenes from the drama, thus escaping the painful reality that they are old, ugly, and married to an old, ugly alcoholic. Pe Yonjun could have any woman in Japan. Who knows, maybe he already has.

Anime

This actually makes up only a tiny percentage of the shows on any given day (which is good, because 99% of anime sucks balls). Sorry geeks, don’t come to Japan expecting free anime whenever you want. You’d best stay in your parents’ basement frantically downloading EPs off of BitTorrent while listening to Morning Musume and desperately trying to convince yourselves that you’ve learned Japanese by watching cartoons. Ne?

Comedy

There are a couple variety/comedy shows that don’t whore themselves out to the God of Capitalism, but they usually end up degenerating into “Chat time with so-and-so B actor” or “So-and-so B actor and friends bake another B actor a cake.” There’s also “So-and-so B actor grows tomatoes.” Seriously. And, for absolutely no reason that I can comprehend with my meek gaijin brain, there are magic shows almost every day. Why? It’s magic!

Sports

The most inane sports are shown as if they’re the most fascinating thing since Genghis Khan: Baseball (yes, baseball is inane), horse racing, tennis, golf, and reruns of the freakin’ Olympics. The Olympics ended! Get over it!

Blocked

Certain channels are scrambled during the shows, but not during the commercials. Fuck you.

Of all of Japanese broadcast television, news makes up about 50% of the shows, followed by infomercials (49%) and all the rest (0%; percentages might not add up to 100 because I don’t give a damn). Why, why, why, why, why didn’t I bring my DVDs from America?