Slashdot Mirror

Have celebrities on who need to guess why something is the way it is or what something is given multiple choices and make sure the guest celebrities are witty as are the hosts. Wild, colourful sets also required. Imagine the old Hollywood Squares focussing on just one or two topics ranging from heart disease to tofu cooking. Include short segments interviewing experts in the field and carry out experiments and trials with outside people as well as the guests.

Japanese TV has perfected this means of science (and other) general knowledge education through two shows my family watches all the time:

Tameshite Gatten! (Try it and Discover)
Sekai Ichiban Uketai Jugyou. (World's best/most useful/want to learn classes)

We learn a ton of practical, interesting things whilst laughing our asses off.

I agree this would make a more interesting revolution game (of course that is just speculation)... Not sure why, but the $40 does seem high.

Well they make it like this? http://www.ntv.co.jp/channel/kasoh/kin10.html

Or this movie? http://www.j-fan.com/cinema/cinema.cgi?action=view rev&selected=8

The story from Studio Ghibli VP Steven Alpert's "Mononoke Hime" Diary:

January 27 (Tue) - Meeting with Harvey Weinstein in New York. In January we had our first meeting with Miramax since the decision was made for them to release MONONOKE HIME. Suzuki-san brought Harvey Weinstein a present from Japan. A Japanese sword (not a real one, but one that looked exactly like a real one, except the blade was not sharp). We had heard that Harvey Weinstein sometimes has a very bad temper, and we notices that the other Miramax staff in the room looked very worried as he took his present from its sheath and examined the blade).

You forgot to link to the Official Japanese Website for Howl's Moving Castle For those who are Japanese-impaired, the first 4 links along the bottom edge of the letter read thusly: Info | Story | Character | Staff&Cast | ...

There was a TV show in Japan a few years ago, where there was a comedian by the name of Nasubi (Eggplant) that was on a reality show where he was locked into a room completely naked, and could only live off of what he could win by sending in applications for free prizes from various contests. Not only that, but he couldn't leave until he had won 1 million yen (~10000 USD) worth of prizes. You can see the whole dillema here.

This is the kind of crazy stuff that you can only see in Japan. Japanese TV had people enduring all sorts of painful and humiliating tortures years before anything like 'Fear Factor' ever caught on in the west. Near the end of the article, the author says:

"So what was the point of the Nasubi experiment? Ostensibly, it was to test the thesis that contests had become so ubiquitous that it would be possible to live entirely on what one had won in them. This was called kensho seikatsu (Living off contests).
Of course the real reason is that programs involving human suffering are extremely popular in Japan. The gambaru genre, started in the 1980's with the immensely popular show Za Gaman, a show in which university students competed in contests to see who could stand the most pain, eat the most unpleasant foods, and perform the most humiliating tasks. Denpa Shonen is a logical continuation of this trend, and the stunts are becoming more and more dangerous/appalling.
Someday a Japanese comedian is going to die in a horrible accident and this sort of program will be immediately pulled from the airwaves. People are travelling through dangerous countries, fighting bulls without any training, scaring the life out of innocent victims and playing incredibly cruel practical jokes. It's inevitable that a tragic accident will happen. There will be condemnations and recriminations, and people will say that they never liked them, knew they were dangerous, and definitely never watched them. But almost everybody is watching them because they are fascinating."

I think that says alot about reality TV here in the west, too. Anyway, Nasubi's own home page (Japanese only) is located here.

While it's cool to see what amatures can do on a low budget I haven't seen any fan spoofs of the matrix that are actually funny. Matrix ping pong got a laugh out of me though.

Been done.

There is another way...

Checkout this . It's a video of two guys playing table tennis, "Matrix Style". They have performed matrix style effects live on the stage. Really funny stuff !!

they have a trial course that you can try if you got a graphics pad.

I got the link when I was browsing around studio Ghibli

On another note, could we perhaps link to Studio Ghibli when discussing their films in the future? It might reduce the number of "We Hate Disney" posts. It is unfortunate that Disney got the release rights to the Miyazaki/Ghibli films, but I'd rather rant about them somewhere else (for those of you who don't know who Miyazaki is check this out).

this article tries to explain the whole thing. Both "nadia" and "laputa" (that share a good deal of plot and characters) came form an idea originated inside Studio Ghibli, when ANNO Hideaki was still working there, before creating GAINAX. Now, the folks at Disney are re-using some of the same ideas; this time, at least, they are acknowledging MIYAZAKI Hayao's work (he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place). When someone asked them if they where referring to TEZUKA Osamu with their "Lion King", they answered like "tezuka who?". And Tezuka was a great fan of Walt Disney.

Nasubi was only one segment on a show Denpa Shonen which included many survivor type themes.

Denpa Shonen is famous for sending of Hitchhikers on cross continent treks, forcing them to earn money for food on their own. They even sent two guys from the tip of South America to Alaska, which took well over a year.

The hitchhikers are always follwed by a cameraman and go through some amazingly harsh ordeals to get where they're going. Best of all, no tribal council.

Nasubi was only one segment on a show Denpa Shonen which included many survivor type themes.

Denpa Shonen is famous for sending of Hitchhikers on cross continent treks, forcing them to earn money for food on their own. They even sent two guys from the tip of South America to Alaska, which took well over a year.

The hitchhikers are always follwed by a cameraman and go through some amazingly harsh ordeals to get where they're going. Best of all, no tribal council.

For those of you who enjoy good Anime, this is *definitely* worth checking out.

This is the man who created my all time favorite Anime, Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind). Not only is this a full length story (weighing in at right about 2 hours...I hate 45 minute 'movies' with no time for a real plot) but the depth, the characters, and the writing are all abosolutely amazing.

It's strange, but very few people in the US seem to be familiar with Nausicaa, despite the fact that I'm told it almost always places in the top 5 of every Japanese poll about the greatest Anime ever. I suppose part of the reason may be that no Enlglish dub was ever made (Technically, there was an English dub, it was called Warriors of the Wind. However, I refuse to count it, because it was so horribly chopped, mangled, and destroyed, it's not even worth watching. They cut out almost half an hour in the dubbing and editing, essentially everything that was important for the plot, leaving you with a few disjointed action scenes.)

If you'd like more information on Hayao Miyazaki and his Animes and Mangas, check out some of the following URLs:


http://www.nausicaa.net/

http://www.princess-mononoke.com/

http://www.ntv.co.jp/ghibli/

Find out for yourself why the old stigma 'cartoons are for kids' only goes in the US. This will show you how amazing an indepth a 'cartoon' can be.