Anybody up for a little discussion with regards to Japanese TV? I'd like to start by posting my recommendations if anyone would like to check them out.

「タモリクラブ」
In my opinion this has got to be one of the best programs on Japanese television. Tamori and whomever are the guests for that episode explore a topic. It's half-an-hour and as such doesn't fall prey to the weird standardized hour of programming that most shows in Japan have. With an hour they try to stretch the content so far, but not with Tamori Club. It's about 20 minutes of the topic, 4 minutes of 空耳アワー, and fits into anybody's schedule. By the way 空耳アワー is the greatest.

「探偵！ナイトスクープ」
Each episode is an hour. Split into 3 segments where 3 "detectives" each go to a place/person as requested by the viewers. Basically it's 3 separate topics ranging from simple questions of why something happens to absurd requests such as a woman who liked a car so much she wanted to go on a date with it. This ended up with her holding the car's side-door mirror as they went down the beach together.

I'd add more to the list a little later, such as 「とんねるずのみなさんのおかげでした」 and 「ロンドンハーツ」.

Any kind of subtitles exists for those JTV programs?

If you look up older episodes of ロンドンハーツ those have subs. Other than that not that I know of.

Well as i thought the only show I can watch with japanese subs is SMAPxSMAP for now.Understanding those JTV programs seems to require pretty much of listening skills wonder how much time it does need to reach such a level.

I've started watching ほこxたて, super-interesting stuff, very fun presentation.

テベ・コンヒーロ
Changes from week to week, currently they're on the streets of Tokyo and the celebs have to pick people to interview that they think look a certain weight, have a certain amount of money in their wallet, are virgins etc. The harder it is to guess the more points they get. Funny show.

今夜くらべてみました
They have 3 celebs and compare them with each other, it's usually themed, how the three exercise differently, different foods they like, secrets to look young etc. Can be pretty funny.

ロンドンハーツ
Changes every week but it's usually hilarious.

ありえへん∞世界
Basically the panel watch video clips of weird and eccentric stuff. Hit or miss if it's any good though.

宝探しアドベンチャー　謎解きバトルTORE!
Celebs answer questions and solve riddles. I used to like it but it got boring, it's always the same show.

ほこxたて
People compete against each other to prove their product or skill is better than the oppositions. Pretty interesting but they drag it out too long haha. I like it though.

ゴッドタン
Very crude, rude Japanese but f*cking hilarious, especially マジギライ where they get 5 girls (idols) to say how much they hate a celeb (to his face) but only one of them is being serious and he has to guess who. Then they slap him in the face as hard as possible when he gets it wrong. One of my favorites.

マツコの知らない世界
Short show about a certain topic. マツコ basically interviews female bodybuilders (last week) or whoever. Nothing special.

やりすぎ都市伝説スペシャル2012夏
Urban legends, they do it every year.

ルックス排除型恋愛ゲーム「蜜室」
A celeb has to pick from 4 or 5 women/men to date (also celebs--so to speak). He/she never sees them though, so has to try and pick from hearing their voice, touching hands etc. It's okay but not that interesting.

ロケみつ　ザ・ワールド
A girl travels around Japan (currently Europe) and she wins/loses money based on the number she rolls on a die and how many comments she receives on her blog. She's dressed like a character from Evangelion. Some weeks she has no money for food or no place to stay so you just see how she manages to survive. She also has to go certain places and see certain things. I really enjoy this one, it's cute. They also sometimes have a second segment with other people.

アメトーーク!
A bunch of celebs talk about random stuff, not my favorite but all the Japanese people I know absolutely love it.

ダウンタウンDX
Same as above basically.

ギルガメッシュLIGHT
A bunch of idols do random stuff every week, it's funny though. Narrator and hosts always making fun of the girls etc. and some of them just make me laugh.

アナザースカイ
Every week a celeb is interviewed about their "another sky" which is basically a place they always wanted to go or a place that is special to them. Always pretty touching, always extremely funny. My favorite show and it's only 3 people (2 hosts and a guest) so it's not all in your face and loud like most Japanese variety.

世界行ってみたらホントはこんなトコだった!？
2 producers go to the same country, different parts. They just walk around and explore things usually home stay too. It's always funny though especially the current stuff in Jamaica. Ends soon though

脳活アップデートQ!スマートモンキーズ!!
Japanese quiz show where they solve brain teasers. Quite fun.

そうだ旅(どっか)に行こう。
They pick a couple of celebs and tell them that they have the day off. They both decide on a place then drive to wherever they're going. The crew follow them to see where they go when they're not working (bar, onsen etc.). It's pretty good show sometimes just to see the celebs get pissed and singing karaoke or whatever. I don't watch it every week though.

ボクらの時代
Usually like 3 people similar age talk about stuff.

ガチガセ
Experts compete against each other in whatever craft they're good at. I've only seen it a few times though, usually (always??) has AKB members in the panel.

世界の果てまでイッテQ
Can't really explain it since it changes from week to week and the main focus does too. It's pretty fun though, I always seem to laugh out loud watching it.

なんでもワールドランキング ネプ&イモトの世界番付
They take polls and statistics from around the world and then ask the panel of 20 foreigners from each country about the topic. Various stats, lots of video clips from around the world and a good show to learn about various cultures. It always makes me laugh when I watch. There is a second panel (of course) made up of famous Japanese people and they talk back and forth about the countries and their cultures.

There are SO many more out there though.

@nihongonotame - d-addicts.com has tons of shows with J subs. More than you'll ever have time to watch.

I'd love to watch more variety/talk show material, but I can't find any available to stream. And the quality on KeyholeTV...leaves something to be desired. I've considered breaking down and paying Comcast extortionist rates for its NHK channel, but...blech.

If anyone knows hows to access these shows easily from the states, let me know. (EDIT: I've been schooled. Thanks, all!!)

In the meantime, my subs2srs deck is stacked with the new GTO and the live action らんま. Good アニメ I'm watching:

Tari Tari - very endearing slice of life story about five teens on the verge of adulthood. I could put 小夏 in a pie. The animation is gorgeous.

貧乏神が！　- funny, crazy, extremely well animated. Lots of cross-anime references to ルパン, もののけ姫, ナルト, GTO, and many others.

ココロコネクト - for some reason, this one is crazy hard for me to understand (even the 漫画 is challenging), but I'm trying to slog through it.

EDIT: Got the hookup and am watching ロケみつ ザ・ワールド. It's terribly cute.

I'm really hooked on 和風総本家　（Wafuu Souhonke) right now. It's about Japanese products and how they're made. Sometimes they'll go to foreign countries and ask the people there to name some Japanese products, and then will focus on a main one, such as musical instruments or crafting tools.
It's really interesting, and feels VERY Japanese. Plus, it's got an absurdly adorable Shiba Inu puppy named Mamesuke.

ガイアの夜明け was very interesting. Depending on the episode they cover various types of business stuff. The one I watched was about designing shops where you could see the food being made, and basically got to see that it positively affected sales.

I feel it's fair we can also share some YouTube stuff if it's more-or-less related to the discussion.

London Hearts has an online webisodes, in this case it being Magic Mail. They basically play a huge joke on a selected entertainer and they have a girl pretend to have interest in him. They feed her lines to say to him throughout the name and watch the results. Funny stuff.

Also I found this somewhat odd drama about Host clubs. It's a fictional filming of the going-ons inside a Host club such as the competition for customers and all that. Strange stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/user/lovehost?feature=g-user-u

Thanks for the Youtube episodes, some of the older London Hearts episodes are hilarious. English captions too for anybody who's curious.

恋するドライブ
Another one I watch, it's a 25 minute show where two female celebs take a drive and talk about a bunch of stuff. It's not a bad show to have on in the background and it's short so even if you aren't a fan it's over quick haha.

魁!音楽番付　Eight
Some guy from Big Bang interviews people (musicians) I can't say I've seen it before but if you're into J-pop etc. You'll probably like it. I noticed this today's episode has FloRida and they're walking around Japan going in stores trying rice crackers. Might interest some of you who don't know about it.

Also, I know some of these I've listed sound lame "People in a room/driving and talking" BUT these things are great for natural sounding Japanese. I'm not going to say anime/drama aren't real Japanese (of course they are) but a show with a script can be quite different from a real conversation so I'd recommend them to everyone.

Actually I much prefer those laid back shows. Where do you watch 恋するドライブ? Sounds interesting.

Ame talk is not the same thing as downtown dx. they're just completely different. downtown is like 7/10 for me and ame talk is 9/10 (this is excluding kikaku that i do not like because I don't force myself to watch them, i just don't watch them). For one thing Downtown has idols and other talent people besides geinin. On the other hand ame talk is all geinin. Ame talk is hilarious and it's so brilliant sometimes. Depending on the theme I'll be glued to the screen or bored. Maybe you should check out the acclaimed episodes of ame talk. I loved hitomishiri geinin and evangelion geinin and I've never even seen evangelion.

You should check out an ep with an theme that really interests you.

I like the show bokura no ongaku bc they let artists meet and talk to people they admire and that person could be another artist. It's especially great when you know and like both people. Sometimes the performances is also awesome. I loved the 200 th anniversary concert performance with superfly and some guy. The song was called kaede by spitz or Sukashi GAO.

And one show that is really obvious that no one mentioned is shabekuri 007. I have t seen recent eps but eps from 2009 and 2010 are awesome

Also Zotto suru hanashi is awesome. They tell scary stories and Hitoshi matsumotos name is in the title. I don't like yodare ga Seth hanashi. I like suki na hanashi and suberanai hanashi but I love Zotto suru hanashi.

Sorry I wasn't trying to say they were the same show, rather they feature a bunch of people talking in a studio about random things. Ame Talk is themed though, you're right. And it is funnier but it's just not my cup of tea. It's not always geinin though, I don't know how often you watch but idols and models do go on the show.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I'd love to watch more variety/talk show material, but I can't find any available to stream. And the quality on KeyholeTV...leaves something to be desired. I've considered breaking down and paying Comcast extortionist rates for its NHK channel, but...blech.

If anyone knows hows to access these shows easily from the states, let me know. (EDIT: I've been schooled. Thanks, all!!)

I use a version of NTKTV; gives me access to channels like Tokyo TV, TBS, etc. in segments 1 hour after they air in Japan.

http://www.ntktv.com/

Quality is good in my opinion, better then KeyholeTV.

Espionage724 Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I'd love to watch more variety/talk show material, but I can't find any available to stream. And the quality on KeyholeTV...leaves something to be desired. I've considered breaking down and paying Comcast extortionist rates for its NHK channel, but...blech.

If anyone knows hows to access these shows easily from the states, let me know. (EDIT: I've been schooled. Thanks, all!!)

I use a version of NTKTV; gives me access to channels like Tokyo TV, TBS, etc. in segments 1 hour after they air in Japan.

http://www.ntktv.com/

Quality is good in my opinion, better then KeyholeTV.

Wow, that's awesome. Audio and video quality are both a lot better. Thanks so much!!

Well now that I think Abt it shokotan was on ame talk and shes an idol. And if you mean the idols who act as special guests by sitting next to ameagari, it's not the same thing as idols on downtown. On downtown they do countdowns and let the idol And other talent tell their story and sometimes it's not that interesting ( sometimes its too trivial for me to care) On ame talk it's mostly geinin talking some of them are really good at talking.

I happened upon Qさま the other day and it's quickly becoming one of my favorites. I've always been somewhat of a trivia geek, and a lot of the question formats are easy enough for me to follow along with. The best are the questions involving English translation both because I can understand them the easiest and the hilarious Engrish that inevitably results.

I watch most these shows on Youku. If anyone can fill me in on a better place, I'd greatly appreciate it. I prefer not to install any 3rd party software since I like to be able to easily watch from home, work, etc.

「ホンマでっか！？TV」 is one of my favourites. さんまさん and 加藤綾子 are the hosts and there's a panel of celebs and a panel of scientists/評論家. There's usually a theme that the 評論家 take turns chiming in about while everyone else makes ツッコミ. They have things like 人生相談 with a celeb and an explanation of the science behind some everyday problem someone sent in, e.g. how to eat a massive burger without spilling the filling. It makes me laugh a lot, but there's a lot of useful Science Daily type stuff to take away as well; it's a pretty unique mix.

「ネブ＆イモトの世界番付」 and 「世界のみんなに聞いてみた」 are interesting panel shows that look at how things compare in different countries. They have a big panel of 外人 from around the world too, and there's usually a good amount of comic flavour.

Wish I was able to find a place to watch 世界の車窓から. Found out about it via しゃべくり００７ and it seems pretty relaxing and interesting to watch. From what I understand it's about taking train trips to various destinations throughout the world. Seems impossible to find it uploaded anywhere, though.