I Survived a Japanese Game Show - Splat!

Having seen a few of the Japanese game shows, I just had to see this one. A group of ten people think they are going on a "traditional" reality show. What is traditional in the world of reality? You can get engaged, be stranded on an island, dance, sing, cook your way to the top or design yourself silly. Where is the traditional part? Anyway, everyone says they are there to kick butt and win money but they don't know at what.

The group is sent to Tokyo and shown where they will be living. A nice house in the 'burbs. One emerging diva doesn't like the beds on the floor while the guys go crazy over the remote controlled toilet. That's right guys, no reason to leave that toilet seat up! Next enters the mommason and, as she says, she is not their momma! She jumps on them right away to take off their shoes while in the house and to go to bed all in a tone that says she means business.

The next morning everyone gets up early so they can go on a tour of Tokyo, or so they think. They end up on a sound stage where they are told they will be watching a, you guessed it, a Japanese game show. The stage is pitch black and when the lights come up, the group is on the stage facing a rowdy Japanese audience and Romu, the host, who is a total nut. At least Romu speaks English and tells the group what they are going to do.

The group is split into two teams, the yellow penguin team and the green monkey team. They are dressed in business suits and given helmets with a tray on top. One person from each team has to eat mocchi balls (?) out of the trays while the tray wearer runs on a treadmill. Yep, it's a Japanese game show all right. When the one with the tray falls, they end up in a large bin of flour. Who ever eats the most mocchi balls wins. Most contestants did well with the treadmill but Darcy from the yellow team just can't figure out the treadmill and ends up in the flour bin before her player can eat her balls ;) Sorry, I couldn't help myself. The green team ends up with 10 mocchi balls and the yellow team starts to catch up with Romu saying in Japanese "look at his chubby face work!" That's the problem with this, Romu could be saying anything about you and you won't know it, just keep smiling and nodding.

The green monkey team wins and gets a real tour of Tokyo in a helicopter and then in a limo. They get treated like royalty while the yellow team finds out they have to be rickshaw drivers for two hours. At least they have a day to rest before carrying out their punishment.

The next day, mommason takes great pleasure in waking up the yellow team calling them "the losers" and to put on traditional rickshaw driver's uniforms. Our diva, Cathy, makes everyone wait while she takes her time getting ready. They go through their two hour shift pulling local citizens, most of whom do not speak English, around in the rickshaws. At the end, they have to decide on two people to play a game to decide who goes home. Darcy volunteers for one spot since she messed up on the mocchi ball challenge. Darcy tried to get Cathy sent up and everyone seemed to go along with it until Cathy channeled her inner politician and got the group to nominate Bilenda. Poor Bilenda, she is such a team player and so nice, why they listened to Cathy, I don't know. Weak as water the lot of them!

Darcy and Bilenda are dressed up as bugs to play bugs splat on windshield. Sounds lovely. The girls have to jump on to a trampoline and land on a "windshield" and leave their marker for points. Oh yeah, they also leave a green "splat" mark. Gross! It did look rather painful. Neither girl wants to go home and they tie. They go into overtime and Bilenda wins sending Darcy home. Darcy gets carried out of the studio on the shoulders of what looked like the Japanese CIA, all men dressed in dark business suits. Those Japanese sure are stylish!

I'm not too sure about this show. I guess I'll have to watch one more time to see happens! Double D