![]() ![]() Yet the Japanese commentary during the challenges has been left intact (with subtitles). And the on-screen appearances of the original hosts have been stripped out and replaced with segments featuring a commentator who wears a maroon sport coat that could be from the wardrobe of Keith Jackson from around 1985. In G4’s makeover, segments of “Kinniku Banzuke” have been mixed and matched to create episodes of “Unbeatable Banzuke,” resulting in mysterious references to challenges that we haven’t seen. But even the losers who go down in flames at the first obstacle are treated affectionately. The contestants vary significantly in skill, which is another entertaining aspect a typical field might include professional athletes, a celebrity or two, aging martial-arts masters, working-class dreamers, teenage jocks and the inevitable fireman. The G4 programs are game shows at heart, rather than comedies, and both “Ninja Warrior” and “Unbeatable Banzuke” are characterized by an appealing earnestness and esprit de corps among contestants and audience. Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc./Monster 9 Ltd.įailure can be just as spectacular and telegenic as it is on “MXC” or “Jackass,” but it inspires sympathetic groans rather than sardonic frat-house laughter. The seesaw rice-barrel relay on Unbeatable Banzuke, a Japanese show on G4. The show is in Japanese with English subtitles (hard subs), although there is some English commentary and intro/outro to familiarize the show with more mainstream English audiences. ![]() Now G4 has reached even further back into the Japanese television archives for “Kinniku Banzuke,” the show that inspired “Sasuke,” and is presenting it to American audiences as “Unbeatable Banzuke.” Show summary: Each episode is roughly 20 minutes. More recently the G4 channel has generated some buzz with “Ninja Warrior,” a repurposing of “Sasuke,” a long-running Japanese obstacle-course competition. When the Spike channel began showing “MXC,” a re-edited and partly redubbed version of the Japanese show “Takeshi’s Castle,” in 2003, the original was nearly 20 years old. Long before Johnny Knoxville and his friends inspired a generation of skateboarders to taser one another and roll down steep hills in shopping carts, Japanese viewers could watch more orderly physical challenges that resulted in equally humorous slow-motion wipeouts. For instance, television shows in which average human beings fling themselves through the air and land with sickening thuds. Outfielders.īut in some areas they are the pioneers, blazing a trail. The Japanese have always excelled at taking apart American products, making them better and then selling them back to us. ![]()
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