Original Airdate: 2/8/2009
I've taken a break from reviewing the older episodes to do sometime more recent. I figured that I might as well watch and review videos at the same time to save myself some effort. Makes sense, right? I'm also trying out the YouTube thing, and embedding it here. So, try to check out my channel and all that.
Today’s challenger will be the Tetsuo from the comedy group “Waraimeshi”. If you watch Gaki often, you’ll recognize them as the group that’s always putting on some sort of play whenever Gaki tries to hold a badminton event in a park. Tetsuo is the taller of the two and is probably the most outspoken and stylish of the pair.
As always, the rules of shichihenge apply, I believe. Upon counting though, I’ve found that there are 11 people in the room. There usually are only 10, but when the person belongs to a comedy group, they usually let their partners stay in the room to watch.
1st henge: Tetsuo comes in wearing a old-fashioned baseball-cap. You know, one of the ones with the mesh thing in the forehead area. He’s got it flipped down over his eyes, like I’ve done so many times while bored during Little League baseball practice. He soon flips it back to the correct position and pulls out some red tape. He begins marking off a box around his area on the table, and spells out 入ルナ (hairuna), meaning “DO NOT ENTER”, then flips the mesh back over his eyes.
On second consideration, he adjusts the boundaries of the table to include some of Matsumoto and Hamada’s table space, and sets some money down in front of Hamada. Giving up, he heads out of the room, putting the money in the counting basket, with no one laughing. After he leaves, the cast is left to wonder if that actually counts.
2nd: Tetsuo comes back in with a mirror, and begins practicing his “one-line gags” in front of it. He starts by doing Edo Harumi’s “goo-goo” gag, then someone else’s “Sanpei-desu”, followed by Dandy Sakano’s famous “GETS!” line. For some reason, this part really echos, probably due a recording. This essentially freaks everyone out. He tries a half-hearted “sanpei-desu” again, then tries Ai Haruna’s “Iu yo ne!” line. He then returns with an echoing “GETS!” which gets 8 of the people in the room. After another “sanpei-desu”, he does another “GETS!” which gets his partner. A total of 9/10 laughed. Compared to his first try, a definite improvement.
3rd: Dressed as a doctor, he comes in and sits down and calls for someone to send the next patient in. A woman in a red sweater comes in and says she feels feverish, so he asks her to lift her shirt. He takes a stethoscope, and puts it on her boobs. This immediately gets Hamada and Matsumoto. He asks her to do a half-turn in her swivel-chair and then immediately asks her to turn back around and repeats that several times. He puts a pair of rabbit ears on her and starts groping her with a pair of plastic hands. After a good groping, he sends her on her way. Over the course of the gag, he gets 6 cast members to laugh.
4th: In a magician outfit, with two lovely assistants carrying fish tanks with water and a not-so-lovely male assistant, Tetsuo sidles into the room repeatedly thrusting his hands into the water. His chubby male assistant hands him a towel to dry his hands. He takes a rapier, and one of his assistants throws what’s supposed to be a orange, which he seemingly pierces with the sword. He goes back to thrusting his hands into the water and dancing with the disco music in the background. They repeat the process with the orange and rapier a few more times, and the chubby assistant switches places with Tetsuo and does the hand-thrusting and dancing. The room is left to wonder how the hell someone thought that up. 7 of the crew are driven to laughter.
5th: Dressed in a red robe and equipped with a fart machine, Tetsuo waddles in with funny eyes painted over his eyelids. He scampers frantically around the room, sounding the fart machine near people. This got most of the people in the room. Between the combination of the make-up and the farts, he gets 6 people.
6th: Leading a class of PE students, PE Teacher Tetsuo teaches the students how to count off in the coolest way possible, with a mild lisp. As they start counting, he jumps in and corrects the students who used alternative pronunciations of numbers. For example, the fourth child uses “yon” and is instructed to use “shi” instead. He leaves out of the room to let the students practice, and the students huddle and just decide to leave. The lesson gets all 11 people in the room to laugh.
7th: As characteristic for shichihenge, there’s got to be some absurd amount of nakedness. Tetsuo comes in wearing a bath towel saying “I guess it’s not here” while searching around the room. He takes his towel off, and according to the note which the censors have left, he’s apparently has red bean paste slathered all over his junk. Once again, this gets the whole room to laugh for another 11 bills added to pile.
Added all together, he gets 53,000 yen and ties for second place with Bob Sapp for all-time second place.
I’ve given this episode a rating of 5 stars. Fart jokes just get me every time. Combined with the nostalgia from the baseball cap, this probably would have gotten 5 stars even if all the jokes sucked.
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Sunday, April 19, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
つっつん 八変化!!
（Tsuttsun Hachihenge）
Original Airdate: 3/3/1996
(NOTE: I did not have the time to add screen grabs and pictures. I will do so soon。)
Since the beginning of the shichihenge, they’ve been letting some of the standouts on the staff try their hands at being comedians. Today, they let director Tsuttsumimoto Yukiou, affectionately known as Tsuttsun try his hand with the shichihenge. Tsuttsun is known for being a fairly shy guy with practically no stomach for breaking bad news to the cast. He’s also known to get it crunk after work with his love of alcohol. But seeing as the last three non-comedians (Heipo, director Sakamoto, and producer Suga) didn’t do so good with the numbers, they’re letting Tsuttsun get 8 chances to make them laugh to even things out. Let’s see what Tsuttsun has up his sleeve for laughs.
Henge 1: Tsuttsun walks into the room with shades and a black tank top on. He sits down in his chair as he puffs his cigarette, and then gets uncomfortable and just kinda squats on the chair. Probably not all that funny in itself, but it might be if you knew the man. Probably one of those “I always wondered what it would look like if he did that” moments. Matsumoto laughed, putting the first bill in the money box. First blood for Tsuttsun.
Henge 2: Tsuttsun runs in wearing a Judo gi (the stereotypical martial arts outfit) yelling “Yah!”, like they do in judo schools. He starts grabbing the staff members and shaking them violently. Judo is a sport all about balance. There’s a lot of grappling, and throw maneuvers and you have to keep your balance while still being on the offensive. As a warm-up, a lot of judo practitioners warm up by finding a partner and then pushing and pulling each other as a way to get those stabilizing muscles working. He ends the gag with a less than enthusiastic “hai” and exits. This last bit gets Heipo to laugh, and forces him to pay.
Henge 3: Tsuttsun’s got a hat that essentially makes his head look like an acorn. On the little piece of branch are a few more acorns. He pulls one of them off to eat it, bites in and throws it away as it tastes awful. He then just gets up and leaves. Not very funny. Hamada right afterwards brings up a reference to Yamazaki’s fail-tastic shichihenge experience.
Henge 4: Tsuttsun comes in dressed as an anime character. I can’t seem to put my name on the anime though. His cell phone rings, and he answers with “This is Bell”. I wanted to say Zatch Bell, but that’s not it. Man, I’ve gotten out of touch with anime. Okay, I never was in touch with it, as I never really liked it much. Anyways, the conversation continues with “What?! Someone’s injured? I’m on the way.” Tsuttsun walks back out of the room, apologizing to everyone while leaving. This gets two staff members, producer Suga, and Yamazaki.
Henge 5: Tsuttsun walks in wearing a cartoonish police hat, a tie, his undies, a backpack and nothing else. He’s carrying a jitte, which is like a police nightstick with the little side protrusion bending the same way as the main shaft. I’ll let you do research on it if you so care, so I won’t bother you with the details. Basically, he takes the jitte and rubs it over Matsumoto’s face and body and all sorts of creepy ways. This gets Matsumoto and Hamada. On his way out, he does some little random moves.
Henge 6: OMG blackface. Okay, not really. Tsuttsun adorns some dark make-up, almost ganguro-ish (something else to look up in your free time), to imitate what the members assume to be producer Suga. He walks around the room, pestering Hamada in Suga’s style of talking closely and asking questions twice.
Henge 7: Wearing only cardboard angel wings and a halo, cherub Tsuttsun strolls into the meeting with his bow in hand. He straddles the helpless Matsumoto and shoots him softly at close range with a few arrows.
Henge 8: Dressed as a school girl, Tsuttsun sits next to Matsumoto and pesters him with cries of “do it~~~!” and “Gimme~~~!”. Really doesn’t get anyone, until long after the joke is over and everyone starts shouting their opinions. That seems to be a good way to avoid laughing during the joke: Knowing that you can laugh like hell when the person leaves the room. Much different from the “No Laughing” penalty games, where laughing anywhere gets you a penalty.
When the dust settles, Tsuttsun racks up 10,000 yen for charity. That means that he got 3000 yen more than Yamazaki did, and didn’t need the extra chance to do it. Anyone else up for filing a “GTFO Yamazaki” petition?
This episode’s opener wasn’t that great, but the talk is the great redeemer. Matsumoto talks about various topics like interracial children and sex. One write-in question asks about the concept of the “Half,” which is what the Japanese call someone of half-Japanese half-some other nationality, usually American. The question wants to know what it’s called when two “halves” make a baby. I was interested in what the hell Matsumoto was going to answer, as I’d imagine that knowledge of the word “quarter” is rare in Japan. Matsumoto’s answer is “that’s a traditional child” and he didn’t understand the question. He never gave an answer, but went on to say that he thought there were three or four words for it already. If this episode were just the opener, I would have given this episode a 2-star rating, but the great talk bumps it up to a 3.
Read more!
Original Airdate: 3/3/1996
(NOTE: I did not have the time to add screen grabs and pictures. I will do so soon。)
Since the beginning of the shichihenge, they’ve been letting some of the standouts on the staff try their hands at being comedians. Today, they let director Tsuttsumimoto Yukiou, affectionately known as Tsuttsun try his hand with the shichihenge. Tsuttsun is known for being a fairly shy guy with practically no stomach for breaking bad news to the cast. He’s also known to get it crunk after work with his love of alcohol. But seeing as the last three non-comedians (Heipo, director Sakamoto, and producer Suga) didn’t do so good with the numbers, they’re letting Tsuttsun get 8 chances to make them laugh to even things out. Let’s see what Tsuttsun has up his sleeve for laughs.
Henge 1: Tsuttsun walks into the room with shades and a black tank top on. He sits down in his chair as he puffs his cigarette, and then gets uncomfortable and just kinda squats on the chair. Probably not all that funny in itself, but it might be if you knew the man. Probably one of those “I always wondered what it would look like if he did that” moments. Matsumoto laughed, putting the first bill in the money box. First blood for Tsuttsun.
Henge 2: Tsuttsun runs in wearing a Judo gi (the stereotypical martial arts outfit) yelling “Yah!”, like they do in judo schools. He starts grabbing the staff members and shaking them violently. Judo is a sport all about balance. There’s a lot of grappling, and throw maneuvers and you have to keep your balance while still being on the offensive. As a warm-up, a lot of judo practitioners warm up by finding a partner and then pushing and pulling each other as a way to get those stabilizing muscles working. He ends the gag with a less than enthusiastic “hai” and exits. This last bit gets Heipo to laugh, and forces him to pay.
Henge 3: Tsuttsun’s got a hat that essentially makes his head look like an acorn. On the little piece of branch are a few more acorns. He pulls one of them off to eat it, bites in and throws it away as it tastes awful. He then just gets up and leaves. Not very funny. Hamada right afterwards brings up a reference to Yamazaki’s fail-tastic shichihenge experience.
Henge 4: Tsuttsun comes in dressed as an anime character. I can’t seem to put my name on the anime though. His cell phone rings, and he answers with “This is Bell”. I wanted to say Zatch Bell, but that’s not it. Man, I’ve gotten out of touch with anime. Okay, I never was in touch with it, as I never really liked it much. Anyways, the conversation continues with “What?! Someone’s injured? I’m on the way.” Tsuttsun walks back out of the room, apologizing to everyone while leaving. This gets two staff members, producer Suga, and Yamazaki.
Henge 5: Tsuttsun walks in wearing a cartoonish police hat, a tie, his undies, a backpack and nothing else. He’s carrying a jitte, which is like a police nightstick with the little side protrusion bending the same way as the main shaft. I’ll let you do research on it if you so care, so I won’t bother you with the details. Basically, he takes the jitte and rubs it over Matsumoto’s face and body and all sorts of creepy ways. This gets Matsumoto and Hamada. On his way out, he does some little random moves.
Henge 6: OMG blackface. Okay, not really. Tsuttsun adorns some dark make-up, almost ganguro-ish (something else to look up in your free time), to imitate what the members assume to be producer Suga. He walks around the room, pestering Hamada in Suga’s style of talking closely and asking questions twice.
Henge 7: Wearing only cardboard angel wings and a halo, cherub Tsuttsun strolls into the meeting with his bow in hand. He straddles the helpless Matsumoto and shoots him softly at close range with a few arrows.
Henge 8: Dressed as a school girl, Tsuttsun sits next to Matsumoto and pesters him with cries of “do it~~~!” and “Gimme~~~!”. Really doesn’t get anyone, until long after the joke is over and everyone starts shouting their opinions. That seems to be a good way to avoid laughing during the joke: Knowing that you can laugh like hell when the person leaves the room. Much different from the “No Laughing” penalty games, where laughing anywhere gets you a penalty.
When the dust settles, Tsuttsun racks up 10,000 yen for charity. That means that he got 3000 yen more than Yamazaki did, and didn’t need the extra chance to do it. Anyone else up for filing a “GTFO Yamazaki” petition?
This episode’s opener wasn’t that great, but the talk is the great redeemer. Matsumoto talks about various topics like interracial children and sex. One write-in question asks about the concept of the “Half,” which is what the Japanese call someone of half-Japanese half-some other nationality, usually American. The question wants to know what it’s called when two “halves” make a baby. I was interested in what the hell Matsumoto was going to answer, as I’d imagine that knowledge of the word “quarter” is rare in Japan. Matsumoto’s answer is “that’s a traditional child” and he didn’t understand the question. He never gave an answer, but went on to say that he thought there were three or four words for it already. If this episode were just the opener, I would have given this episode a 2-star rating, but the great talk bumps it up to a 3.
Read more!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
[Non-Gaki Related] One of those months...
Hello readers and fellow Gaki fans...
As you may have noticed, I have not put any new reviews up in about two weeks. That is because my computer with all my movies on it decided to blow up. So, I've decided to inform you on the status.
If you want to read a long, pitiful rant, feel free to click the "Read more..." link below. If not, just feel free browse around or hit the Back button in your browser or something like that.
The tale of my computer is an interesting one. I had a laptop during my first year here at college, and somehow the little headphone jack got broken. The computer would no longer would play sound at all, since it thought that the headphones were always plugged in, but the jack was broken so sound couldn't get to you if you plugged headphones in.
My aunt, who had just left her job of almost 20 years for a higher paying one, had more money than she essentially knew what to do with. She was now working for this new job with great pay, and her old job gave her a severance package, paying her for several years after she'd left.
Out the combined deepness of her heart and her pockets, we went online to Dell.com and picked out a nice, new, shiny laptop: the Dell XPS M1330. As my aunt wanted to spoil me, she decided that money was not an object and just started hitting the upgrade options left and right. One of those upgrades was an nVidia graphics card.
The catch, and general punchline to this story is that the graphics card has apparently had a glitch in it, that tends to cause the card to fry itself and sometimes the motherboard with it. That's what happened to me. So, I took my non-functional laptop to the library to do some research on what could be done. Apparently, this is a common issue for this model of laptop and graphics card, and usually happens fairly early into the life of the computer. I saw reports of people's computers biting the dust only 14 days after they got it. So, I think about contacting Dell to see what they can do about it, and having had my computer for about a year got me thinking, "Holy crap. This better be covered in my warranty."
Punchline number two: My warranty expired just two weeks before the thing tanked. I call Dell anyway, where I'm referred to the Out-of-Warranty service department. The person working the phones actually recognized the symptoms and said that I was "lucky" to have gone so long without that thing failing. Apparently, so lucky that I new have to pay to get it fixed. The lady on the phones told me that service was $199 dollars, and that covered everything, including plastics and keyboard should it be needed... And that should the motherboard or screen need to be replaced, that'll be another $299. So doing the math and taking into account that more than likely this video card has made my motherboard go kablooey, I'm out $500 dollars because all my stuff is on this laptop. I've sent it off to them, and they gave me the usual "7 to 10 business days! Enjoy disconnectivity, and I hope you backed up your files. :D" schtick, and I'm stick walking across campus in the snow (yes, it's still snowing here. -_- ) to use the library computers every few hours to check my e-mails, with no guarantee that the files that I'm really shelling out this money to keep are going to be there when this thing gets back to me.
So, the moral of this story is: If you buy a laptop, (not just a Dell or Windows PC, as this same card is screwing over Mac users too) get an external hard drive and save all your important things on there, just in case your laptop craps out and you have to explain to your blog readers why you ain't bringin' the funny. :(
Alright. Enough about me and my computer. I'll see you guys again soon, hopefully with a laptop full of Gaki videos that I'll be able to review and post here.
Read more!
As you may have noticed, I have not put any new reviews up in about two weeks. That is because my computer with all my movies on it decided to blow up. So, I've decided to inform you on the status.
If you want to read a long, pitiful rant, feel free to click the "Read more..." link below. If not, just feel free browse around or hit the Back button in your browser or something like that.
The tale of my computer is an interesting one. I had a laptop during my first year here at college, and somehow the little headphone jack got broken. The computer would no longer would play sound at all, since it thought that the headphones were always plugged in, but the jack was broken so sound couldn't get to you if you plugged headphones in.
My aunt, who had just left her job of almost 20 years for a higher paying one, had more money than she essentially knew what to do with. She was now working for this new job with great pay, and her old job gave her a severance package, paying her for several years after she'd left.
Out the combined deepness of her heart and her pockets, we went online to Dell.com and picked out a nice, new, shiny laptop: the Dell XPS M1330. As my aunt wanted to spoil me, she decided that money was not an object and just started hitting the upgrade options left and right. One of those upgrades was an nVidia graphics card.
The catch, and general punchline to this story is that the graphics card has apparently had a glitch in it, that tends to cause the card to fry itself and sometimes the motherboard with it. That's what happened to me. So, I took my non-functional laptop to the library to do some research on what could be done. Apparently, this is a common issue for this model of laptop and graphics card, and usually happens fairly early into the life of the computer. I saw reports of people's computers biting the dust only 14 days after they got it. So, I think about contacting Dell to see what they can do about it, and having had my computer for about a year got me thinking, "Holy crap. This better be covered in my warranty."
Punchline number two: My warranty expired just two weeks before the thing tanked. I call Dell anyway, where I'm referred to the Out-of-Warranty service department. The person working the phones actually recognized the symptoms and said that I was "lucky" to have gone so long without that thing failing. Apparently, so lucky that I new have to pay to get it fixed. The lady on the phones told me that service was $199 dollars, and that covered everything, including plastics and keyboard should it be needed... And that should the motherboard or screen need to be replaced, that'll be another $299. So doing the math and taking into account that more than likely this video card has made my motherboard go kablooey, I'm out $500 dollars because all my stuff is on this laptop. I've sent it off to them, and they gave me the usual "7 to 10 business days! Enjoy disconnectivity, and I hope you backed up your files. :D" schtick, and I'm stick walking across campus in the snow (yes, it's still snowing here. -_- ) to use the library computers every few hours to check my e-mails, with no guarantee that the files that I'm really shelling out this money to keep are going to be there when this thing gets back to me.
So, the moral of this story is: If you buy a laptop, (not just a Dell or Windows PC, as this same card is screwing over Mac users too) get an external hard drive and save all your important things on there, just in case your laptop craps out and you have to explain to your blog readers why you ain't bringin' the funny. :(
Alright. Enough about me and my computer. I'll see you guys again soon, hopefully with a laptop full of Gaki videos that I'll be able to review and post here.
Read more!
Monday, February 2, 2009
山崎邦正 七変化!!
(Yamazaki Housei Shichihenge)
Whoo… Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. Life has been getting in the way. Anyway, I think I will try to post things on a regular schedule. Right now, it’s looking like it will be Sunday nights. Well, I guess it’s early Monday mornings, as it’s about 1 am now.
The Shichihenge series is another legendary part of Gaki’s legacy. Shichihenge(七変化) translates roughly to “the Seven Shapeshifters” or “The Seven Apparitions”. The point of this game is fairly simple. The Gaki members, producers and general staff higher-ups have a planning meeting. Whoever’s turn it is to do the shichihenge-ing leaves the room and returns seven times, to try to make the people in the room laugh. Each time someone laughs at one of the gags, they have to pay a penalty fee of 1,000 yen (which ranges anywhere between USD $10-12, depending on the exchange rate) which is donated to charity. So, doing the math, since there are ten people in the room, with seven gags at a penalty fee of 1,000 yen, the maximum amount earnable is 70,000.
Today is Yamazaki’s turn to take on the Shichihenge. So far in the history of the show, I think there’s been three other shichihenges: Heipo, director Sakamoto, and producer Suga. If anyone out there can correct me on this, it would be greatly appreciated. I can’t find the dates or episodes for those three, so I don’t know for sure when they happened. None of them really did well, but they decided to let him go anyway.
Matsumoto starts out with by saying he wondered what would happen if he let Yamazaki do this. Yamazaki explains that he’s studied, thought about it carefully and come up with several gags to unleash on the crew. Let's take a look at how Yamazaki, who I generally don’t find funny, did.
Henge 1: Yamazaki walks into the room mostly naked, in what I think is supposed to be a play on the stereotypical mermaid outfit. He’s got shells over his nipples and only-God-knows on his crotch (Thank you, censors). He brings in a mirror to set down on the meeting table, so he can check himself out.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No.
Henge 2: Yamazaki walks in carrying buckets of live fish, and wearing a stopwatch. He starts and stops his stopwatch a few times, then grabs a fish from the bucket and puts it in his armpit. The fish flops around and gets away, so he grabs the buckets and leaves. There was no mention of him picking that fish off of the ground (which will probably upset you more if you’re in PETA), but I’m pretty sure that one of the staff picked it up, as it isn’t there for the next henge.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Heipo.
Henge 3: Yamazaki comes in wearing a burglar outfit, with a stocking over his head. For those of you who are familiar with Japanese comedy, you know that the stocking over the head is used fairly often as it just warps the wearer’s face into funny shapes. He faces everybody with his little toy knife, and nobody laughs so he leaves. He stops in the doorway on the way out and breaths heavily, which produces a Darth Vader-ish noise. This cracks Matsumoto and one of the directors.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Matsumoto and some staff member who I can’t remember right now.
Henge 4: Okay. This one was kinda funny. Yamazaki comes in dressed as an office lady. He unzips his/her briefcase and starts typing away on a laptop. A cell phone call comes, which he answers with “Hello?... Hello?.. Oh… Georgia… Okay… Michael… Okay…” He cracks Matsumoto. This also cracked me, but for different reasons. One, if you watch enough Gaki, you’d know that Yamazaki touts himself as being good at English, but he’s only good at imitating things he hears. If you watch some of the “Yamazaki Produces” episodes of Gaki (which I guess I will do here eventually) you’ll see that he tries to write songs in English, but completely mangles grammar. Thus, when he speaks English as jokes and such, it’s usually small one or two word phrases, or longer phrases that they teach students in school like “Nice to meet you.”
Who laughed?
Me: Okay. Yeah, I did.
Staff: Matsumoto.
Henge 5: Yamazaki comes in dressed as a superhero. He cracks Hamada right off the bat, and then complains about it being cold, which then gets Matsumoto. He punches some staff with his big foam hands, then leaves.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Hamada ,Matsumoto and that producer whos name I’ll figure out later.
Henge 6: Yamazake comes in “dressed” as a baby, carrying a baby doll. He puts the doll on the desk, and then stands on the desk two in the position that the doll is in. As you can see, this resulted in people sitting in the room seeing more of Yamazaki than they’d really care to. Nakedness though, really does get the job done when it comes down to making people laugh.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No. (Although, I will say, that I would have ruled that Matsumoto laughed.)
Hrm… they stop there. Now I’m glad that I’m actually blogging this, as I’d never noticed this before. It looks as though either Yamazaki didn’t do a seventh or it was generally too stupid or too vulgar to be broadcast. That’s interesting. Maybe I could do some research and see what happened.
Anyway, the money was totaled, and Yamazaki earned a measly 7,000 yen for charity. That is a mere 10% of the maximum total possible. That score was the lowest score for a long time as far as shichihenge goes, and stayed as the low score for several years. It may still be the lowest score ever. That really must be a huge blow to the pride, when you call yourself a comedian or entertainer, and your score for making people laugh is being resoundingly beaten by the producers and directors on the show you work on. That’s why I gave this episode a 2-star rating. It was just lame. Okay, the talk wasn’t bad, but I hardly make it to the comedy talk on this episode because I usually turn it off during the shichihenge.
Read more!
Whoo… Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. Life has been getting in the way. Anyway, I think I will try to post things on a regular schedule. Right now, it’s looking like it will be Sunday nights. Well, I guess it’s early Monday mornings, as it’s about 1 am now.
The Shichihenge series is another legendary part of Gaki’s legacy. Shichihenge(七変化) translates roughly to “the Seven Shapeshifters” or “The Seven Apparitions”. The point of this game is fairly simple. The Gaki members, producers and general staff higher-ups have a planning meeting. Whoever’s turn it is to do the shichihenge-ing leaves the room and returns seven times, to try to make the people in the room laugh. Each time someone laughs at one of the gags, they have to pay a penalty fee of 1,000 yen (which ranges anywhere between USD $10-12, depending on the exchange rate) which is donated to charity. So, doing the math, since there are ten people in the room, with seven gags at a penalty fee of 1,000 yen, the maximum amount earnable is 70,000.
Today is Yamazaki’s turn to take on the Shichihenge. So far in the history of the show, I think there’s been three other shichihenges: Heipo, director Sakamoto, and producer Suga. If anyone out there can correct me on this, it would be greatly appreciated. I can’t find the dates or episodes for those three, so I don’t know for sure when they happened. None of them really did well, but they decided to let him go anyway.
Matsumoto starts out with by saying he wondered what would happen if he let Yamazaki do this. Yamazaki explains that he’s studied, thought about it carefully and come up with several gags to unleash on the crew. Let's take a look at how Yamazaki, who I generally don’t find funny, did.
Henge 1: Yamazaki walks into the room mostly naked, in what I think is supposed to be a play on the stereotypical mermaid outfit. He’s got shells over his nipples and only-God-knows on his crotch (Thank you, censors). He brings in a mirror to set down on the meeting table, so he can check himself out.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No.
Henge 2: Yamazaki walks in carrying buckets of live fish, and wearing a stopwatch. He starts and stops his stopwatch a few times, then grabs a fish from the bucket and puts it in his armpit. The fish flops around and gets away, so he grabs the buckets and leaves. There was no mention of him picking that fish off of the ground (which will probably upset you more if you’re in PETA), but I’m pretty sure that one of the staff picked it up, as it isn’t there for the next henge.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Heipo.
Henge 3: Yamazaki comes in wearing a burglar outfit, with a stocking over his head. For those of you who are familiar with Japanese comedy, you know that the stocking over the head is used fairly often as it just warps the wearer’s face into funny shapes. He faces everybody with his little toy knife, and nobody laughs so he leaves. He stops in the doorway on the way out and breaths heavily, which produces a Darth Vader-ish noise. This cracks Matsumoto and one of the directors.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Matsumoto and some staff member who I can’t remember right now.
Henge 4: Okay. This one was kinda funny. Yamazaki comes in dressed as an office lady. He unzips his/her briefcase and starts typing away on a laptop. A cell phone call comes, which he answers with “Hello?... Hello?.. Oh… Georgia… Okay… Michael… Okay…” He cracks Matsumoto. This also cracked me, but for different reasons. One, if you watch enough Gaki, you’d know that Yamazaki touts himself as being good at English, but he’s only good at imitating things he hears. If you watch some of the “Yamazaki Produces” episodes of Gaki (which I guess I will do here eventually) you’ll see that he tries to write songs in English, but completely mangles grammar. Thus, when he speaks English as jokes and such, it’s usually small one or two word phrases, or longer phrases that they teach students in school like “Nice to meet you.”
Who laughed?
Me: Okay. Yeah, I did.
Staff: Matsumoto.
Henge 5: Yamazaki comes in dressed as a superhero. He cracks Hamada right off the bat, and then complains about it being cold, which then gets Matsumoto. He punches some staff with his big foam hands, then leaves.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: Hamada ,Matsumoto and that producer whos name I’ll figure out later.
Henge 6: Yamazake comes in “dressed” as a baby, carrying a baby doll. He puts the doll on the desk, and then stands on the desk two in the position that the doll is in. As you can see, this resulted in people sitting in the room seeing more of Yamazaki than they’d really care to. Nakedness though, really does get the job done when it comes down to making people laugh.
Who laughed?
Me: No.
Staff: No. (Although, I will say, that I would have ruled that Matsumoto laughed.)
Hrm… they stop there. Now I’m glad that I’m actually blogging this, as I’d never noticed this before. It looks as though either Yamazaki didn’t do a seventh or it was generally too stupid or too vulgar to be broadcast. That’s interesting. Maybe I could do some research and see what happened.
Anyway, the money was totaled, and Yamazaki earned a measly 7,000 yen for charity. That is a mere 10% of the maximum total possible. That score was the lowest score for a long time as far as shichihenge goes, and stayed as the low score for several years. It may still be the lowest score ever. That really must be a huge blow to the pride, when you call yourself a comedian or entertainer, and your score for making people laugh is being resoundingly beaten by the producers and directors on the show you work on. That’s why I gave this episode a 2-star rating. It was just lame. Okay, the talk wasn’t bad, but I hardly make it to the comedy talk on this episode because I usually turn it off during the shichihenge.
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Saturday, January 17, 2009
レベンジマッチ:山崎vs.Moriman Part 3
(Revenge match: Yamazaki vs. Moriman part 3)
After getting his ass handed to him on a platter in the previous two matches, Downtown revises the format of the match to include more than the pants removing match, in hopes that it would give Yamazaki the chance to get his revenge. Also, the newcomers to the show, Cocorico, serve as Yamazaki’s trainers. Feel free to squeal at the sight of a tracksuited Tanaka. Endo gets the responsibility to break the tension before the fight, and does so with great ease. He’ll get this responsibility for all of the Yamazaki vs. Moriman events after this, and it’s easy to see why. However, after this he’ll be doing this bit in briefs.
The first match is the “face stocking removal” match, in which both contestants try to remove the pantyhose placed over their opponent’s head. In doing so, their face will warp which means big laughs for the viewers. Unknown to the organizers of this event, Moriman wasn’t in it for the laughs, and winds up wrestling Yamazaki to the ground, climbing on his back and choking him. Yamazaki taps and loses the match.
After regaining his composure, Yamazaki is faced with the “slipper fight” match. The premise is simple: each person gets two slippers and attempts to beat the living hell out of their opponent. Moriman jumps out of her corner and begins the ass-beating. Yamazaki puts up a fight, but finds himself backed into a corner. He tries to circle to the center of the ring, but turns his back to Moriman and finds himself on the receiving end of a direct slipper hit to the face. Another victory for Moriman.
Yamazaki gets to choose the third match, and chooses the “Low kick” match. I don’t think he really thought through the idea that Moriman was going to be able to kick him.
The fourth match is the “super hot ankake” match, in which each person gets a pan full of hot ankake sauce to fling at their opponent. The first one to give up or is unable to continue loses. Okay, while it’s still funny, the “OH MAN IT’S HOT” myth was debunked a while ago. Japanese comedians seem to love doing thing with “hot” things because they get to do reaction bits. The most common hot thing is hot water. For example in some quiz shows, if you get an answer wrong, you get dropped into “hot” water, and the comedian runs around, says that it’s hot, and flops around, etc. In actuality, it’s a little warmer than room temperature, and poses no health risks at all.
Fifth match is the “wet towel” match, where several wet towels are placed in the ring. Rule is much like all the other ones. Use the towel, beat the snot out of your opponent, you win.
Much like times before Yamazaki gets pummeled while showing little to no resistance. I think I’ll give this episode a rating of 5 stars. Although the new battle themes were nice, all of the matches were fairly short. The commentary between and after rounds is what made the episode worth watching.
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After getting his ass handed to him on a platter in the previous two matches, Downtown revises the format of the match to include more than the pants removing match, in hopes that it would give Yamazaki the chance to get his revenge. Also, the newcomers to the show, Cocorico, serve as Yamazaki’s trainers. Feel free to squeal at the sight of a tracksuited Tanaka. Endo gets the responsibility to break the tension before the fight, and does so with great ease. He’ll get this responsibility for all of the Yamazaki vs. Moriman events after this, and it’s easy to see why. However, after this he’ll be doing this bit in briefs.
The first match is the “face stocking removal” match, in which both contestants try to remove the pantyhose placed over their opponent’s head. In doing so, their face will warp which means big laughs for the viewers. Unknown to the organizers of this event, Moriman wasn’t in it for the laughs, and winds up wrestling Yamazaki to the ground, climbing on his back and choking him. Yamazaki taps and loses the match.
After regaining his composure, Yamazaki is faced with the “slipper fight” match. The premise is simple: each person gets two slippers and attempts to beat the living hell out of their opponent. Moriman jumps out of her corner and begins the ass-beating. Yamazaki puts up a fight, but finds himself backed into a corner. He tries to circle to the center of the ring, but turns his back to Moriman and finds himself on the receiving end of a direct slipper hit to the face. Another victory for Moriman.
Behold the face of a man who has been beaten down with a slipper.
Yamazaki gets to choose the third match, and chooses the “Low kick” match. I don’t think he really thought through the idea that Moriman was going to be able to kick him.
The fourth match is the “super hot ankake” match, in which each person gets a pan full of hot ankake sauce to fling at their opponent. The first one to give up or is unable to continue loses. Okay, while it’s still funny, the “OH MAN IT’S HOT” myth was debunked a while ago. Japanese comedians seem to love doing thing with “hot” things because they get to do reaction bits. The most common hot thing is hot water. For example in some quiz shows, if you get an answer wrong, you get dropped into “hot” water, and the comedian runs around, says that it’s hot, and flops around, etc. In actuality, it’s a little warmer than room temperature, and poses no health risks at all.
Fifth match is the “wet towel” match, where several wet towels are placed in the ring. Rule is much like all the other ones. Use the towel, beat the snot out of your opponent, you win.
Much like times before Yamazaki gets pummeled while showing little to no resistance. I think I’ll give this episode a rating of 5 stars. Although the new battle themes were nice, all of the matches were fairly short. The commentary between and after rounds is what made the episode worth watching.
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Monday, January 12, 2009
山崎邦正ケツリベンジ: KETSU-1グランプリ!! (Yamazaki vs Moriman Part 2)
(Yamazaki Housei Ass revenge: Ass-1 Grand Prix)
Original Airdate: 12/29/1996
As the title suggests, today is Yamazaki’s chance to get revenge on Moriman because he got steamrolled by Moriman. First he starts by making excuses, about his ribs, and that there’s something keeping him from performing at his very best. Matsumoto just wants to clear the air, and make sure that he’s not wimping out. When he asks if Yamazaki wants to quit, Yamazaki answers “…if I can…” for which Matsumoto, like I would, smacks him across the face.
Unlike the previous time, Yamazaki opts out of the sparring matches against groups, and shows off his sparring partner. His sparring partner, Heipo, works on the show, and is generally known for three points: He’s easily scared, he’s got no luck with the ladies, and he’s generally a pervert. Yamazaki squares off against this pervert. Then after the first match, Hamada reminds Yamazaki that Moriman usually manages to get him in a defensive position and that he has to be able to guard, so the second sparring match starts with Heipo on top of the grounded Yamazaki. Pimp slaps ensue. Matsumoto suggests that they should change the line-up to Moriman vs. Heipo.
The show then breaks for a Downtown comedy talk, in which they talk about things ranging from Yamazaki’s work as a singer to the sound of rain in the building to the Tamagocchi (you know, those little virtual pets that all us kids, including myself, had in fourth grade) craze. I was thinking of subtitling some of these talks because they’re a big part of the show, and sometimes they’re things you can’t laugh at by visual cues alone unlike most of the other openers. So, uh… if anyone knows any programs, or generally what you’d use to subtitle videos, dropping me a line in the Comments section would be appreciated.
After the comedy talk, we’re ready for the revenge match. It starts with challenger Yamazaki’s entrance to “Eye of the Tiger”, then champion Moriman’s entrance to “We Will Rock You” and rocks Yamazaki with slaps to the face before the match even starts. Yamazaki’s forced to wimp out yelling “Owowowow!” Once the dust settles, both fighters are presented with flower bouquets from foreign women (showing Gaki’s, or perhaps all of Japan’s, concept that “it’s funny because they’re foreign” which we’ll see many times throughout Gaki’s history) and then they are ready to battle. Note: as you watch this video, please be prepared for Matsumoto’s infectious hyena-laugh at about 15 seconds.
Hamada pretty much summed it all up with the “何ソレ?” (nani sore?) meaning “What was that?” The story of Yamazaki’s life, eh? I’ve cataloged this episode as a 4-star episode, but I’d like to bump it up to a five. It’s building up to a legend. I probably marked a 4 because I think this was the first of the “Yamazaki vs. Moriman” episodes I’d ever seen and didn’t know that it was going to a part of something so huge. It lacks the polish and general hilarity over that most of the other episodes have, being so short, but it’s still able to hold its own.
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Original Airdate: 12/29/1996
As the title suggests, today is Yamazaki’s chance to get revenge on Moriman because he got steamrolled by Moriman. First he starts by making excuses, about his ribs, and that there’s something keeping him from performing at his very best. Matsumoto just wants to clear the air, and make sure that he’s not wimping out. When he asks if Yamazaki wants to quit, Yamazaki answers “…if I can…” for which Matsumoto, like I would, smacks him across the face.
Unlike the previous time, Yamazaki opts out of the sparring matches against groups, and shows off his sparring partner. His sparring partner, Heipo, works on the show, and is generally known for three points: He’s easily scared, he’s got no luck with the ladies, and he’s generally a pervert. Yamazaki squares off against this pervert. Then after the first match, Hamada reminds Yamazaki that Moriman usually manages to get him in a defensive position and that he has to be able to guard, so the second sparring match starts with Heipo on top of the grounded Yamazaki. Pimp slaps ensue. Matsumoto suggests that they should change the line-up to Moriman vs. Heipo.
After the comedy talk, we’re ready for the revenge match. It starts with challenger Yamazaki’s entrance to “Eye of the Tiger”, then champion Moriman’s entrance to “We Will Rock You” and rocks Yamazaki with slaps to the face before the match even starts. Yamazaki’s forced to wimp out yelling “Owowowow!” Once the dust settles, both fighters are presented with flower bouquets from foreign women (showing Gaki’s, or perhaps all of Japan’s, concept that “it’s funny because they’re foreign” which we’ll see many times throughout Gaki’s history) and then they are ready to battle. Note: as you watch this video, please be prepared for Matsumoto’s infectious hyena-laugh at about 15 seconds.
Hamada pretty much summed it all up with the “何ソレ?” (nani sore?) meaning “What was that?” The story of Yamazaki’s life, eh? I’ve cataloged this episode as a 4-star episode, but I’d like to bump it up to a five. It’s building up to a legend. I probably marked a 4 because I think this was the first of the “Yamazaki vs. Moriman” episodes I’d ever seen and didn’t know that it was going to a part of something so huge. It lacks the polish and general hilarity over that most of the other episodes have, being so short, but it’s still able to hold its own.
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Thursday, January 8, 2009
山崎ケツ公開スパーリング （Yamazaki Vs Moriman Part 1)
Original Airdate: 11/03/1996
Yamazaki Housei ketsu koukai sparring. Yamazaki vs. Moriman 1
This episode is a classic that will start what will go down in history, at least in my book, as a legendary series on Gaki no Tsukai. Yamazaki, who recently joined as a regular on the show still has to prove himself to Downtown, and therefore has decided to show that the entertainment world is all about kicking ass and getting your ass kicked. On a side note, he does all this while wearing this schoolboy uniform.
Downtown didn't ask why he wore this, so neither will I.
Yamazaki has decided to warm up, and then have a match with the Champion. Myself, nor Matsumoto or Hamada know how a champion exists, but apparently there is one. The rules of the battle are simple: Pull off the opponent’s pants, leaving them to lie there bare-assed in shame. The first two matches are sparring matches in which Yamazaki faces a group of five opponents at once, and cannot remove his opponent’s pants. The point is to see just how long he can hold out against them. I think the main reason is to see Yamazaki get straight owned by 5 people at once.
The first match is against a squad of American Football players. The squad doesn't see to be professional, but hey, they're just there to tear the pants off of Yamazaki. It doesn't take a professional anything to do that.
A pitiful nine and a half seconds. I can't play a song on my violin sad enough to describe how sad that was, but then again, I've only been learning for about 3 months so I can't play much of anything.
Sparring match two is against the fearsome "おばさん軍団” or "Granny Squad". These here ain't your "give you fresh baked cookies" variety of grannies. These are the pants-pulling, ass-slappin' grannies that your friend told you stories about, but you never believed.
After strutting down to the ring, the grannies sized up the opposition. Yamazaki seemed to want to size up the granny in the gray blouse...
... but, uh... Yamazaki... that big grape looking thing behind you looks like she can crush you with her left boob alone... (which I secretly wish she did)
As is somewhat obvious if you know how weak Yamazaki is, he gets dragged to the ground and stripped. Left to lie in shame, with this ass flapping in the breeze.
After the warm-ups, it's time to take on the Champion, which no one knows who appointed as the Champion. The champion is Moriman. I guess technically that's wrong. Moriman is a duo made up of 種馬マン(Taneuma-man) and モリ末(Moriou), but Moriou is the one doing all the fighting. Taneumaman serves as the corner girl. Aaaaaanyway, the champion makes their way into the ring, and starts by sending a message of the hard slap to Yamazaki's face. This is where to the battle begins. Yamazaki can now try to take off his opponent's pants. It's on, show them what you can do, Yamazaki.
Not much, apparently, lol. Okay, well you have to give the man some credit. After taking that beating, he gets back up and is ready immediately for his rematch. You lost the battle, not the war. Get 'er done, Zaki.
Okay, so now you've lost the war. It's okay, Yamazaki. Unfortunately for you (yet fortunately for the rest of us), you'll be fighting Moriman again later.
I'm giving this episode 6 stars. As I said in my first post ever, there's very few things that make me even care about Yamazaki. One of those things is Yamazaki getting pummeled. This episode if chock full of it. This is episode sets up a series that will last for years on Gaki no Tsukai, and is truly a golden gem in th -- ... wait... a golden gem? Is that even possible? It must be late, I'm being nonsensical. Let me be brief then, and generally non-poetic. Yamazaki gets beatdown, and that makes me happy. Four stars!
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