If I remember correctly, I had come home from a bad day at school. Or maybe it was summer, and I had a hard day at work. Anyway, I had a crappy day, and I came home hoping that Gaki would be there to cheer me up. I opened the video file to find Downtown and Cocorico, wearing suits with a very somber tone to the scene. I looked just above their heads to see a banner reading “Goodbye, Yamazaki!!” My mood escalated tremendously. After years of having to put up with Yamazaki trying to push his way to the TV screen, he’s being sent packing?! Oh Gaki, I knew you’d make the right choice someday. Let’s just hurry up and get this episode over with, so we can have the show feature the four people I can stand!
Hamada breaks the news that Yamazaki will be leaving the program, and today will be his last episode, due to his “graduation.” Yamazaki is brought out, wearing a tuxedo that looks too big in the shoulders, to explain his feelings. Hamada tries to put the mood into perspective with an “although it’s a sad time, it’s also a happy time” type of speech, when all I really care about is whether the door’s going to hit Yamazaki on the way out. Matsumoto brings up that neither he nor Endo had heard anything about his reasoning behind leaving the show. Yamazaki tries to spit out this crap about how he’s found a girlfriend and implies that he won’t have time. Then he tells the real story about how he wants to appear on more than one show, and they tell him that ain’t going to work, so he decided to leave. Apparently, Matsumoto realizes that Yamazaki is worthless, because he’s turning away from the camera to laugh. Wait. . . That’s why he’s laughing, right? It has to be.
Anyway, Yamazaki has chosen his best 5 clips from his time on Gaki No Tsukai. C’mon. Let’s get this over with. . .
First is Yamazaki’s attempt at becoming a “Super Yogore” comedian. (I actually thought about covering this episode. I’ll get to it eventually, I promise.) In an attempt to be a shock comedian, Yamazaki goes to a “Love hotel” with a dresser. Love hotels are hotels that you rent out on basically hourly rates, and are for, well, making love in. He proceeds to wash and give an “erotic massage” to the dresser, while Downtown watch from a separate room via camera.
In fourth place is Yamazaki versus Jimmy Oonishi. Not just one episode, but over several episodes, Yamazaki and Jimmy Oonishi, which many of you know from the High School Penalty game as the “Ten. . . Ten. . . Ten. Ten. Ten. Ten. Ten” guy, had a feud going on. The clip shows Jimmy doing a move to Yamazaki’s car a la Rick James on Charlie Murphy’s couch. (That first note that shows up during that scene says that is really Yamazaki’s car.)
Coming in third place is a prank that the show played on Yamazaki in which an actor plays the role of the older broth of the girl that Yamazaki is dating. Basically, Yamazaki tries to bitch out and act like he’s not there AFTER he asks “Who’s there?” when the actor knocks. Dumbass. Then when the accomplice writer “accidentally” opens the door for the actor, Yamazaki acts like he’s not Yamazaki. The prank is revealed and he gets all teary-eyed, etc.
Second place is the “Haunted School Piano Concert”. In a penalty game, Yamazaki’s forced to walk around a “haunted school” getting instructions and sheet music on songs to play on the piano. It’s dark and eerie enough, but with added scares from the set-up traps placed by the production crew, there was lots of screaming and whining going on.
Number one is “Yamazaki vs. Moriman: Battle of the Blaze”. As for the reasoning behind this, I’m pretty sure that if you’ve seen the series, you’d know why it’s easy for anyone to enjoy. If you’re a Yamazaki fan, you’ll love that he’s not afraid to make fun of himself. If you’re not a Yamazaki fan (you probably can tell which side of the fence I’m on), you get to see him get his ass handed to him repeatedly. Featured in the clip is a brief history of the “Hot, hot ankake” battle, in which competitors pour hot soup over each other in order to make the other give up.
After the clip, it’s time for the members and prominent members of the staff to say their goodbyes. First up is Producer Suga, starts his message with the traditional “Thanks for these 12 years”, etc. message, and then descends into speaking complete gibberish because he doesn't have much else to say. Then Cocorico gives a speech, and Downtown drops a bomb basically saying “It’s a good thing you quit, because otherwise we were going to.” Ha! ROFL! OWNED!
Next up is Yamazaki’s turn to speak to the audiences. He basically gives the typical “Thank you for cheering me on” speech but adds “I just want to appear on a few other shows”. Ha! Yet again! Ha!
As soon as Yamazaki leaves the stage, Matsumoto explains that his leaving makes it easier on the show. A group of five is a hard thing, and having only four people makes it easy to work together and easier to split up into teams. Way to look at all the positives, Matsumoto! It looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more 2 vs 2 competitions on Gaki No Tsukai, with four people that are going to make this interesting. This calls for cute, little, celebratory emotes! (^__^)b \o/ 8-)
Hrm. . . “Yama-chan wa. . . Gaki No Tsukai Yamahende!”... Doesn’t that mean, “Yama-chan isn’t leaving Gaki No Tsukai”? Wait. . . WHAT?! No! Why is Yamazaki standing behind that curtain? And what in the world is he doing in that shirt?! This is all a joke? No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Why is the music starting? Oh, not Ricky Martin... And what's with the Engrish?
. . .
Oh great, now he's doing Para-Para dancing?! Leave. Now.
Okay, Gaki. You got me. I thought you'd kicked him to the curb. Jokes on me. Har har har. Overall, I gave this episode a 4-star rating. If they'd actually booted him off of the show, it would be along the lines of a 25-star rating. I've found out that I really didn't like this episode because I had to subtitle it, and this episode is almost all talk. Secondly, the announcer's voice during the montage is so damn slow, I'd have to leave some subtitles up for 10 seconds just waiting for him to finish a sentence. *shakes fist vehemently at person who requested this episode* Anyway, I guess it's better that I just go ahead and get reviewing it out of the way. I probably won't do most of the others. They're the same format, with different clips and slightly funnier parting messages. The ending parts where he proclaims he's not leaving are the only parts worth the time, in my opinion.
Read more!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Ice Coffee Limit Check
Another one of Gaki no Tsukai’s long-running series, the Genkai(Limit) series finds the Gaki members interacting with just more than each other. They take the action out into the real world with real people. The first episode in the Genkai series comes about due to Matsumoto flubbing up his order and his observation that if you go into a restaurant and order ice coffee, even if you should slur or mangle the word a little, you’ll still get the iced coffee. Isn’t it funny how Matsumoto gets all sorts of ideas from restaurants, like when he wanted to make waitresses spin in place.
So Downtown and Yamazaki hit the tour bus, and head out into the town. Matsumoto kicks his idea off by introducing 11 things that he thinks that you can say and still get away with. They are:
They only aired 10 of the them, and cut out the “atsui koohii”, which always got hot coffee. Due to Downtown's notoriety, they send Yamazaki to do the hard work, as at that time he was still fairly unknown. Let’s see how the little runt did. . .
First up, “Ice Mohi”. Yamazaki orders his “ice mohi” and the waiter stands there with a dumb look on his face, trying to confirm that that he really meant iced coffee. When asks for four “ice mohi”s, he knew it wasn’t a mistake and went to fetch the drinks. “Nice coffee” went off without a hitch, and the waiter returns with an iced coffee. Hopefully it actually tasted good, then he would have gotten what he ordered.
For the third attempt, Yamazaki finds himself trying to order a “Mice Mohi”, which he does actually get. But I’d like to take this moment to make a public service announcement: Children, brush your teeth. The waiter helping Yamazaki and friends has a grill that would make Chuck Norris cry. (Yes, I did just make a Chuck Norris joke, even though those are about 3 years old now.) Seriously, his teeth are so bad that his hairline is running away from it.
The fourth phrase, “Nice Coach”, was a close one. The waitress and the man making the orders both heard it, but assumed he was talking about coffee after he refused to give a response. The waitress just decides to screw it and go with an iced coffee. It was just barely close enough to pass.
Aisouwarai is a forced smile, kind of like when you’re forced to play nice with someone you really don’t like. Apparently when you order at a restaurant with that, you get iced café au lait. I guess I can see how that would work: “Aisouwarai” versus “Aisuoore”.
Ordering a “coffeecoffee”, gets you regular hot coffee. That would be a no-brainer, so I can’t figure out why Yamazaki looked surprised and disappointed when she brings hot coffee.
The seventh is where we just ditch the concept of coffee altogether and start ordering all sorts of oddball things. The seventh phrase is “tansu nouhin” which translates to “delivery of a dresser/cabinet”. There was no way that these from here on out were going to pass.
“Aitsu mou ii” is eighth, and this threw the waitress for a loop. She tried to act like she understood the order and walked off, but when Yamazaki called her over to make sure that she got it right, she gave away that she had no clue.
The last two, “High Society” and “Iron Hero” were just not going to pass. I do commend both of the waitresses for not slapping Yamazaki in the face for his idiocy. The last waitress even wanted to learn, like she wanted to stay on top of the current slang and lingo. She figured it was a new trend that she might need to take note off. I’d give her a tip if I was Yamazaki.
After reviewing the results, Matsumoto takes Hamada out to try ordering with high-level words. The hilarious and the miraculous ensue. However, in the comedy talk after the opener, Hamada puts Matsumoto in his place by exposing the truth about what happened in the coffee shop that day.
Overall, I give this episode a 4-star rating. For more on my wonky rating system, check this out.
Read more!
So Downtown and Yamazaki hit the tour bus, and head out into the town. Matsumoto kicks his idea off by introducing 11 things that he thinks that you can say and still get away with. They are:
- “aisu moohii” (Ice Mohi)
- “naisu koohii” (Nice coffee)
- “maisu moohii” (Mice Mohi)
- “naisu koochi” (Nice Coach)
- “aisouwarai” (a faked smile)
- “koohii koohii” (coffee coffee)
- “tansu nouhin” (a cabinet delivery)
- “atsui koohii” (Hot coffee)
- “aitsu mou ii” (I’ve had enough of him)
- “haisosaitii” (High Society)
- “aianhiiroo” (Iron Hero)
They only aired 10 of the them, and cut out the “atsui koohii”, which always got hot coffee. Due to Downtown's notoriety, they send Yamazaki to do the hard work, as at that time he was still fairly unknown. Let’s see how the little runt did. . .
First up, “Ice Mohi”. Yamazaki orders his “ice mohi” and the waiter stands there with a dumb look on his face, trying to confirm that that he really meant iced coffee. When asks for four “ice mohi”s, he knew it wasn’t a mistake and went to fetch the drinks. “Nice coffee” went off without a hitch, and the waiter returns with an iced coffee. Hopefully it actually tasted good, then he would have gotten what he ordered.
For the third attempt, Yamazaki finds himself trying to order a “Mice Mohi”, which he does actually get. But I’d like to take this moment to make a public service announcement: Children, brush your teeth. The waiter helping Yamazaki and friends has a grill that would make Chuck Norris cry. (Yes, I did just make a Chuck Norris joke, even though those are about 3 years old now.) Seriously, his teeth are so bad that his hairline is running away from it.
The fourth phrase, “Nice Coach”, was a close one. The waitress and the man making the orders both heard it, but assumed he was talking about coffee after he refused to give a response. The waitress just decides to screw it and go with an iced coffee. It was just barely close enough to pass.
Aisouwarai is a forced smile, kind of like when you’re forced to play nice with someone you really don’t like. Apparently when you order at a restaurant with that, you get iced café au lait. I guess I can see how that would work: “Aisouwarai” versus “Aisuoore”.
Ordering a “coffeecoffee”, gets you regular hot coffee. That would be a no-brainer, so I can’t figure out why Yamazaki looked surprised and disappointed when she brings hot coffee.
The seventh is where we just ditch the concept of coffee altogether and start ordering all sorts of oddball things. The seventh phrase is “tansu nouhin” which translates to “delivery of a dresser/cabinet”. There was no way that these from here on out were going to pass.
“Aitsu mou ii” is eighth, and this threw the waitress for a loop. She tried to act like she understood the order and walked off, but when Yamazaki called her over to make sure that she got it right, she gave away that she had no clue.
The last two, “High Society” and “Iron Hero” were just not going to pass. I do commend both of the waitresses for not slapping Yamazaki in the face for his idiocy. The last waitress even wanted to learn, like she wanted to stay on top of the current slang and lingo. She figured it was a new trend that she might need to take note off. I’d give her a tip if I was Yamazaki.
After reviewing the results, Matsumoto takes Hamada out to try ordering with high-level words. The hilarious and the miraculous ensue. However, in the comedy talk after the opener, Hamada puts Matsumoto in his place by exposing the truth about what happened in the coffee shop that day.
Overall, I give this episode a 4-star rating. For more on my wonky rating system, check this out.
Read more!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Your input appreciated!
Hello, ever increasing Black Gaki readers.
In an attempt to make the reader experience more enjoyable, I'm looking for some feedback on a few things．Feedback on anything, from the layout of the blog itself to my *cough cough* less-than-regular posting schedule, would be appreciated.
If you click on the "READ MORE!" below, I've posted a few things I'd really like your opinions on. . .
THINGS I'D APPRECIATE YOUR OPINION ON:
In an attempt to make the reader experience more enjoyable, I'm looking for some feedback on a few things．Feedback on anything, from the layout of the blog itself to my *cough cough* less-than-regular posting schedule, would be appreciated.
If you click on the "READ MORE!" below, I've posted a few things I'd really like your opinions on. . .
THINGS I'D APPRECIATE YOUR OPINION ON:
- Subtitles - I recently started putting subtitles on the videos that I'm putting up on YouTube. How do you like them? Are they too fast? Too slow? Should I continue to use the YouTube subtitle service thus letting people have the option of removing the subtitles, or should I encode the subtitles onto the video itself?
- Content - What parts of the show would you like to see? Just the openers? Mostly openers, but some talk portions if they're good? Would you like just episode clips or would you like to see some compilations of pieces grouped in some interesting way?
- Layout - Perhaps a different color than this boring old black and light green? (Keep in mind that I'm horrible with HTML, CSS, and pretty much all things Webpage related, so if I do change it, it's going to be rough sailing.) Would you like to see more things like polls around? Should post titles be in English or Japanese with English below it?)
- Non-Gaki items - Anyone care about my personal goings-ons that I put in here, or should I just generally STFU and let you enjoy Gaki in all its glory? How would you feel about the occasional posting of other Japanese comedy acts, and not just those of Gaki or its members? Should I just keep them marked with a "[Non-Gaki Related]" tag, so you can just avoid them if you choose?
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Tetsuo's Shichihenge
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.
Read more!
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.
Read more!
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.
Read more!
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