Kiki Nattou!

Well, it's time for another BB-- Wait. . . this is a whole episode.

Ah, right. This is the episode I'd planned on putting up on Sunday, but was still getting used all the buttons and stuff on my new video editing and subtitling programs. Okay, I won't call them my "new" ones, since I'm so not impressed that I'm undoubtedly going back to my previous methods due to sheer ease.

Anyways, this episode is Gaki's 23rd entry in the Kiki series. This time's subject of taste-testing is nattou. For those of you who know what the Kiki series is all about, just skip ahead to the videos. For those that don't know, the Kiki series is a long running series on Gaki No Tsukai, where each member is assigned a brand of product, chosen by the other 4 members. They then have to try that brand blindfolded, and then go through the table full of various brands and try to find their mystery brand. You can only choose one at a time, and if you think it's not the one, you throw it in the trash. If you think it's right, you come to the center stage and say that you think you've found it! If you get say the wrong brand is correct, or you throw away the correct brand, you get a penalty. Penalties on Gaki No Tsukai will almost always involve pain. Today it's in the scrotal area.



We open up the episode with the usual introduction of the rules of Kiki, and the introduction of the topic. Today, it's nattou. Nattou is definitely an odd-looking food. It's fermented soybeans, so they start to make a little juice and it gets all sticky and stringy. Tanaka doesn't eat nattou much and doesn't care for it, so he's at a huge disadvantage. Which is exactly why they make him go first. Poor Tanaka.

And let me take this time to say: "DAAA~MN, son! That punisment is messed up!"

Next is Yamazaki, who does the usual "I know what I'm doing" act, and generally overdoes all the lame jokes that aren't getting laughs. If anyone out there doesn't understand why I don't like Yamazaki, please take a look at this episode. He was the reason I had trouble dividing the episode. I couldn't find a good place to cut the video, because he's constantly being lame and/or screaming. So yes, this section ends in a fairly odd place. Blame Yamazaki for that.



Then we pick up right were we left off. Yamazaki is confused. I want to kill him, and speed up translation. You guys have no idea how hard it was for me to get through his section because he's just that lame. The only part I care about is him getting hit in the nuts. Hopefully he will never contribute to the gene pool ever again.

Next up is Hamada. Hamada does a Tanaka and gets out on the first brand. After that is Endou's turn. I really feel sorry for Endou, being in the social position that he is. His role in his comedy duo is the tsukkomi, who pretty much puts down stupid people in his presence. However as far as Gaki No Tsukai goes, he's one of the youngest and least experienced in the industry, so he has to be polite with everyone, except Tanaka. You can see that he REALLY wanted to sling some insults during this episode, but had to hold himself back due to social order. Poor Endou.

Anyway, he finds out that the one that he's been assigned is not one that he normally eats so he goes by process of elimination. Can I take a moment to say that his hair looks good and bad at the same time? Anyone else feel that way? Those little feathered parts in the back make it look like he's got a mini-mullet that hasn't grown into a big-boy mullet yet. Anyways, enough of the follicle-check. After he's done, we're on to Matsumoto's attempt.



Matsumoto does bring the funny this entire episode, getting a good crack in at pretty much everybody and making funny observations ("We don't know what you're imagining", "you slow mudtortoise", "You think a girl likes it when you fondle her? Well you're wrong.", and "This explains the drop in birth rates") so it's nice to see him in the hotseat at times like these. And boy, does Matsumoto put on a show taking it down to the last two brands. Will Matsumoto be the only one to get his badge for the Kiki Nattou?! *cliffhanger and suspenseful music*

As usual for the Kiki episode, there's lots of suspense and lots of good points. However, there were a lot of bad parts (read as "Yamazaki's there"). I'd give this one a 6. It should probably only get a 5 but Matsumoto REALLY saves this episode with his wit. Tanaka was reeling too bad from getting knocked out on the first brand, Yamazaki's just annoying, I couldn't take my eyes off of Endou's magically disappearing and reappearing mullet, and Hamada didn't really seem to be on his A-game. Congrats Matsumoto. We'll credit you with a "save" on this one. Of course points and stats don't really matter.
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Ittsuji Shopping!

Hello Readers.

When I tried to sub the planned episode, I was getting the same problem I had with the "Matsumoto and Eri" episodes, where it thinks it's only an audio file when I try to split it. So, I went on to the next episode, but will return when I figure this out. So I got it done in a day, there's a small part or two with a sub gap, but I'll fill that in later.

On a PSA-type note, be sure to tell the people you love that you love them early and often. No one has passed away yet, but my grandfather's mental health is deteriorating. He's confused half the time and belligerent the other half. He took some joyride 4 hours away from home on his own and got stranded on the side of the road when he ran out of gas, and refused most of the help offered to him. Police had to bring him home (not under arrest, though, so one minor plus). It hurts to tell someone you've known your whole life that you love them, and they can't remember who you are. The only reason he probably thinks I'm related to him is because I look just like my uncle. In fact, he calls my by his name even though I'm 22, and his son would be in his 50's now. So, just as a small forewarning, if my posting here is late, sporadic, crappy, or just generally absent for a while, there's a reason. Probably family business to take care of.

Anyway, I'm just going to put the videos and after the jump.

Ah, the Gaki No Tsukai dressing room. The beginning for many a hilarious episode of Gaki No Tsukai. And with sitting in the dressing room comes... no, not dressing (oddly). . . it's insulting Yamazaki! Even better than the prospect nekkid or half-nekkid middle aged men! And in from the shadows of the corner of the screen comes none other than... Itsuji Itao! (Okay, if you couldn't guess who it is after reading the title of this post, you either don't know who Itao is or you're the person the short bus stopped by the blog for. I'll tell the driver to wait for you when school starts.) And with Itao is his usual entourage of his "wife" and "kid". These are the new wife and kids, and the Itao's first appearance back on the show after the "divorce" from his more popular wife. But this one looks pretty similar to the old one as far as body shape goes, but shows more facial expression. She seems to have slight comprehension of Japanese, if you talk slow. Anyway, they come in their Betty Boop printed wardrobe which has become a signature for Itao on the show. (He doesn't wear Betty Boop clothing on any of the other shows he appears on. Perhaps it's meant to be a trademark of the whole family as a whole? Wife doesn't appear on other shows except Gaki No Tsukai.)

This time, as per usual, there's an introduction of the new wife and kid, and then the unveiling of Itsuji's brilliant plan for making a quick buck. This time, he's invented an Internet shopping show called Ittsuji Shopping, and he wants to pitch it in hopes that SOMEONE (read as "anyone close-by with money") will buy it.


After the intro, Itao's all decked out in a nice suit *SLICK!* and he's ready to introduce the product of the hour! Today's product will be Erection King! The miracle product promises to cure erectile dysfunction and help save marriages.

In the spirit of infomercials and general love of innuendo on TV, there's tons of phallic objects and hip thrusting motions in the introduction, followed by the testimonials of "real" customers as well as a brief summary of the invention of Erection King.



After the first introduction of the product, Itao takes some quick prods at both Endou's fairly recent divorce from Chiaki by suggesting that maybe his love isn't enough but perhaps he could just bone her back into his life, and a quick jab at Matsumoto saying that he's probably impotent. LOL WRONG, ITAO. He may be a little too potent, or else he might not be getting this semi-shotgun marriage to his fiancee.

Then Itao brings out the sweat pants. These pants are just made of awesome and win and what dreams are made of. I want a pair. Someone make some. Now. He straps these huge phallic harnesses onto Matsumoto and Hamada, and then has them try on the sweatpants that feature a Wang Sleeve. He has them running around the studio feeling the man-centric design of the pants and then they are led through some light Jazzercise-style aerobics by Itao's Wife. (I don't think Itao can really get over the incredible dancing skill and success that his last "Wife" had dancing to 80's/90's tunes.) During this part, try to notice just how many times Yamazaki looks at Downtown's simulated junk and giggles to himself. You're married now, Yama-chan? Nice cover, but I'm not buying it.

After the Flop-a-Thon on Downtown's front ends, we watch another video about Erection King's other uses. This section features a fairly well-known comedian in Japan, who is part of a comedy team composed of himself (a foreigner) and a native Japanese. I'm pretty sure his name is Chad. I think. *note to self: research this later. It's on the tip of my tongue. He's always in cheesy Japanese commercials and short films where they need someone to overreact and speak a combination of Japanese and English* Anyway, let's just say, Erection King has many uses beyond a male stimulant.



Then, Itao moves onto the stereotypical "in-studio" explanation of how Erection King cleans everything and can ever cause time paradoxes. Then in stereotypical form of informercials, they play pretty much the same video that they already showed you two or three times during the allotted period and everyone goes "We've seen this already!" And then, it's time to unveil the items that you get when you purchase Erection King. You get a ton of Erection King in different forms as well as the sweatpants all for around 20 US dollars. *ponders calling*

And then they immediately sell out of all 30,000 available units. *slams down phone frustratedly* I just wanted the sweatpants. While Itao tries to convince Suga to purchase the rights to the show, I'm going to see. . . if I can get some of those pants.

I don't believe I've had this rated before, but I'd give it a 6/10 on my rating scale It's fun for the whole fami-- okay, it's fun for the grown folks and the incredibly immature. Things like this are why Gaki doesn't come on during primetime in Japan, and what's keeping it from coming on in most places overseas. That's truly sad.
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Kiki Canned Coffee!!!

Before I get started, I’d like to take a minute to remind you readers about the poll on the main page. If you haven’t voted already, go ahead and do so. I’m going to be uploading an episode which I think does a good job of showing off the winner’s charm. So far, Matsumoto’s in the lead, while Yamazaki and Tanaka are neck and neck near the middle, and Endou and Hamada are fighting it out in the tail end. So make your voices heard and hopefully your favorite wins!

Also, the general request post has been updated and some things have been added. If you’ve got anything else you’d like to see, put it up there, and I’ll try to work it in if I have it.

Now, on to the episode at hand.

The Kiki series is yet another one of Gaki’s many main series. In each episode, there’s a topic product, usually food, but not always, like in the case where they used cigarettes. On the table before them, several different brands of the topic product are spread out, and one by one, each Gaki member has to try and guess which brand of the product was given to them by process of elimination. If they manage to do so, they get a 100,000 yen in prize money! If they guess wrong, they get a fat slap in the face! The audience can’t lose either way!


The first episode of the Kiki series is canned coffee. First of all, let me take an educational moment to reflect on some of the oddness of the Japanese language. If you don’t care about this kind of thing, skip on to the next paragraph! Okay, so when the opening scene shows up, and Hamada’s reading the banner, you may notice that “can” has a kanji character "kan"(缶) even though “can” is a borrowed word. Normally words like that are spelled out in Katakana, which is usually used for loan words and onomatopoeic sounds. However, through the phenomenon called “ateji” kanji compounds that would have the same sound when read and similar meaning are attached to the word. A common example that you might see when watching Japanese TV is “club.” You’d expect it to be written out in katakana as クラブ(kurabu) but you may see in kanji as 倶楽部 which has the same pronunciation, and pretty much the same meaning. Another example I can think of off the top of my head is tobacco. In katakana, it should be tabako(タバコ), but also has the kanji 煙草. In this case though, the katakana version is used way more frequently than the kanji version. Aaaaanyway, back to the episode.

The Gaki members are dressed up as suave waiters, with cute little vests, bowties, and aprons. Hamada gets the honors of introducing the segment and rules. If you watch closely during this part, you can see Tanaka getting all riled up and anxious, because he loves coffee. Hamada also gets to introduce the prize money of 100,000 yen, and that there’s a penalty if you guess incorrectly. Knowing that his comedy partner doesn’t like coffee normally, Matsumoto questions Hamada’s motives for participating in this kind of event with accusations of wanting some money for to keep for his self.

I know the review is going to be very short, but as not to ruin any of the results, I’m just going to put the movies in here and let you watch them. I‘ll see you guys after the movies. :P







So, no one managed to guess their brand correctly. That is unfortunate, but it really makes you wonder just how hard it is to do something like that. I imagine it would pretty dang hard. However slaps abound in this episode and it really manages to keep you on the edge of your seat: will we get to see someone succeed? Even if we don’t, we get to see them get smacked! I also got the added bonus of watching Tanaka fidget around while hyped up on coffee and watching Yamazaki get pimp slapped.
I gave this episode a 6-star rating on the official Black Gaki rating scale.

This is one of the episodes where I started to realize the pure genius that comes out of Japanese late-night TV. We’d never get something like this on American TV. The host take themselves way too seriously to ever let someone slap them, and they’re just too anorexic to eat things in front of other people. I wish there was some way we could write a letter to TV execs basically saying “Your shows suck. We’re outsourcing your jobs to Japan.” I think we’d have some sort of valid basis to show how popular their shows are if they didn’t go screaming “COPYRIGHT!” every few weeks and taking things off of video sites. Until we get our voices heard, you know that you have me, right?!

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