I’ve been trying to find myself a copy of the three volumes of Japanarama by Too Far East Productions for quite some time now. They have a site, of course, but it’s been more or less incommunicado for a couple of years. This is a shame, because sitting around with Baldguy and Jon and Toby and others drinking beer and watching Japanarama is a favorite memory of mine – and if you haven’t seen Japanarama then you simply must, because ninety percent of the crazy Japanese TV what makes it onto Youtube – the cute things like the Matrix ping-pong sketch and the human game of Tetris and the like – pales in pure insane weirdness to what you find on Japanarama.
After some searching through Youtube, I found this. This is one of the mildest shows excerpted for the Japanarama collection:
That’s right – a game show where the contestants fight professional wrestlers at sea in a floating ring surrounded by whale sharks. Does it get any better than that? Well, of course it does, but you actually have to sit down and watch Japanarama to see it.
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I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the majority of Japanese game show contestants are actually celebrities. A-list, B-list, or C-list, I don’t know, but celebrities nontheless.
I live in Japan, and I noticed this when the same people kept showing up on different game shows.
Wouldn’t you love to see that in North America? “This week, Paris Hilton wrestles Randy Savage on the ocean surrounded by sharks!”
Whale sharks eat plankton. There was no danger to the guy. Whale sharks are usually friendly to humans.
I’m aware that the whale sharks weren’t going to eat him, but it is still awfully freaky to be thrown into the ocean and then politely gummed by a whale shark checking to see if you’re food or not.