Category: Variety Shows

Hard Gay, Cupid of Love

Kendo (剣道, kendō), or “way of the sword”, is the Japanese martial art of swords. Kendo developed from traditional techniques of Japanese swordsmanship known as kenjutsu. [It] is practised wearing traditionally styled clothing and protective armour (bōgu), using one or two bamboo swords (shinai) as weapons.

The Yokohama Landmark Tower (横浜ランドマークタワー, Yokohama Randomāku Tawā) is the tallest building in Japan, standing 295.8 m (970 ft) high. It is located in the futuristic Minato Mirai 21 district of Yokohama city, right next to Yokohama Museum of Modern Art. Work on the building was finished in 1993.

Hard Gay is not in fact homosexual nor particularly outrageous, but a rather ordinary male comedian portraying a character. Television programs in which he has appeared have increasingly made reference to this, and he himself has significantly reduced his comic gay mannerisms in live appearances on variety and other types of programs.

Downtown Janken

Janken (じゃんけん, Janken), sometimes Janken-Pon (じゃんけんぽん, Janken-Pon), is “Rock, Paper, Scissors” in the English-speaking world, and it is the most popular of a subset of games played using only one’s hands, known as “Ken games” (ken asobi/拳遊び, “Ken games”). It was invented in the late 19th century and acquired popularity world-wide throughout the 20th century.

Downtown (ダウンタウン, Downtown) is a Japanese comedy duo (kombi) consisting of Hitoshi Matsumoto (松本人志, Hitoshi Matsumoto) and Masatoshi Hamada (浜田雅功, Masatoshi Hamada). Downtown is probably the most influential kombi to come from Yoshimoto Kōgyō, and is arguably the most popular kombi in Japan today.

As with many owarai kombi, there exists a boke and a tsukkomi. Matsumoto is the boke of the two and often puts up with light physical abuse (it is common for the tsukkomi to slap the boke on top of his head whenever he says something rude or ridiculous) from Hamada, the tsukkomi. Hamada is also known to attack other tarento and celebrities (such as Ayumi Hamasaki) when they give boke-like responses to Downtown’s questions. Hamada’s aggressive ways have earned him the nickname of Do ESU no Hamada (ドＳの浜田, Do ESU no Hamada), or “Hamada the Super Sadist.”

Human Tetris

Tetris (Russian: Тетрис) is a falling-blocks puzzle video game, released on a large spectrum of platforms.

Famous J-pop singer Utada Hikaru is an avid Tetris player. She participated in a Tetris DS tournament sponsored by Nintendo and beat 26 out of 30 opponents, mostly of average players and also 1 out of 2 expert tetris players. On her personal blog, she is said to have reached 99,999,999 points in Tetris DS, the highest possible score, after playing the game for 17 hours total.