Monday 13th Aug 8pm - Mark your calendars NOW!

Yup, its official!

J-Wave is here, check this out!
VS Arashi* (Premieres 13 Aug, Monday 8PM)
Run For Money* (Premieres 14 Aug, Tuesday 8PM)
Full Throttle Girl ** (Premieres 18 Aug, Sat 11:30PM)
* Dual Sound (Japanese/Chinese) with English Subtitles
** Japanese language, with English & Chinese Subtitles

I think the ads have started showing already, but have yet to see any yet... was watching stuff on other channels during dinner just now... and cos of copyright problems, they cant post the ad online... aw :(

More info here on the channel u blog

J-pop fans have more reasons to rejoice as the long awaited J-wave makes a comeback. Hilarious Japanese drama 《全开女孩》Full Throttle Girl charges in from 18 August onwards. Starring idols Yuri Aragaki, Ryo Nishikido and Hiroko Yakushimaru, this drama takes on an all-new Saturday 11:30pm time slot. Channel U fans also get to enjoy the highly-rave VS Arashi, a variety game show fronted by Japan’s favorite boy-band Arashi, where members of the band pit themselves against celebrity guest stars every Monday at 8:00pm.

《全员逃走中》Run for Money is all about running away from hunters in the game and to last for as long as every minute counts, because every minute they last equates to every prize dollar earned. Do not miss this energetic gameshow every Tuesday at 8:00pm.

I heard they only bought 1 season of VS. Well i'd be surprised if they buy more than that at a go... knowing how stingy they are... but honestly they wouldnt know how well locals will take to the most popular boyband in japan so... we'll just have to make sure VSA is so popular that'll they'll buy more and more seasons yeah? its just a reality that shows that dont get good viewership ratings get cut... so let's all (ok, just those in sg...) watch VSA on the 13th aug to make sure that doesnt happen! at least they're finally bringing some J-shows... enough with the k-stuff... at least, give us some variety... its not that i hate k-stuff that much but too much of it just makes me wanna cry. With just ONE tv stn in Sg you pretty much dont have a choice.

YESYESYES i cant wait to see VSA on my big big tv! Ok not THAT big... but its a brand new 40 inch tv we just got last month... that's way bigger than my 13 inch macbook :) wahaha and in HD :)

I wasnt expecting eng sub tho, since its a chinese channel... and chinese dubbed LOL. I'll listen to the chi dubbs for a while just for LOLs, must be really hilarious... esp when you know how the members actually sound like. Dual sound ftw haha :) OMG this would be the 1st time i'll be seeing arashi on tv! *yay*

they did appear on the news when they did the promotional video for japan after last's year's earthquake, but i only saw the news on the web much later. On my lappy :(. Somehow news of the kaibutsu-kun movie did make it to CNA news too, but once again i only heard of it much later.

i wonder which episode of vs they'll start showing from? dont know if the show is an hour or just 30 mins... but than again sg tv plays like way more ads than other countries... so the old 1/2 hour VSA MIGHT just become a full hour in sg...  Ok wait... No.... that's just too much, 40mins ads and 20 mins VS... ok nah, that wont happen... but meh...!

What do i wanna watch? i dont mind the starting episodes cos i've not seen all of them (gets boring to watch vsa after a while...), but its the more recent episodes that the games have become more refined, and extravagant etc etc. Like how cliff climb has vasty improved over the years. Changing it from a solo attempt to like a 2 person tag team... the wall size has also changed... (unchanged tho, is how the flimsy wall is still make of some Styrofoam-like material than flakes off dangerously as ppl climb up) New games like kicking sniper, korokoro viking and shot gun disc also add to the excitement. Plus, more games per episode = more fun... previously with just like 2? games per episode that was really way too short (have not watched much of the old episodes).

Was watching an Sg made variety show just now... it was really... -.-'''. Sg version of Sasuke aka ninja warrior is premiering on Nat day too... i wonder how that will turn out o.o

In a way water margin (the show i watched during dinner) is like a ninja warrior wannabe. Only that its not. I was quite excited for it when watching the ads, but after watching the 1st and 2nd episode i got bored... Why? I was thinking over it over dinner and came up with several reasons...

First up, a brief introduction. The game is a 4v4 team event, divided into 3 stages. In the 1st stage, both teams compete against each other to see who can clear the obstecle course faster... 1 member clears the obstacle course at a team but both teams go for it stimutaneously. There's like a fixed number of 'weapons' at the end for use in stage 2. 1st come, 1st served.

Stage 2: 2 platforms (oh forget to say that... all the stages are over the water as in sasuke, just that we have it in a swimming pool), each team start on one platform... fight it out, last team standing wins a 'special order', which negates 2 fails in stage 3.

Stage 3; a series of obstacle courses, much longer and harder than in stage 1.

The problems:
Stage 1 is meaningless. In the sense that you can take ur own sweet time, lose epicly... but still do well for stage 2. Why? cos the 'weapons' are flimsy inflatable long stick/hammer/spear. Its so flimsy you can barely hold it horizontally w/o it bending. What use is the 'weapon' then?

Which leads to the problem with stage 2. Since the weapons are so useless... you just end up jumping from one platform to the other (yes it very close apart) and a cat fight ensues. Just how exciting is it to watch a bunch of idols/civilians push and pull at life jackets, trying to win but at the same time not resorting to overt violence... idk abt you, but its really... awkward to me. There are no rules on what you can or cannot do, but its TV and you really cant go around punching and injuring others... i think the whole stage is very awkward ><

Stage 3... each team sends one member at a time to clear the stage. What i find confusing is the rules. Unlike Sasuke with a strict 'touch water and u're out' rule, water margin is much much more lenient... and forgiving. If you fail an obstacle (oh and touching water is fine, only if u fall right in do u fail), you are given a 2nd chance on the same obstacle. If you fail the 2nd time as well, then you move on to the next obstacle. Confusion arises cos some ppl fail the same obstacle twice, but its not shown on tv (and rules not clearly said at the beginning) so the number of fails tallied does not correspond to the number of fails we see. And the final winner of the game is the team with less fails. If both team have equal number of fails, then the team who took less time overall wins. So does it mean that if both teams are doing just as poorly, failing an obstacle twice in a row give a higher chance of winning since you take less time? Any time penalty for failing? After watching several episodes here and there i still dont know (neither does my parents, who watched the show like every week). So every week my mum will be like 'hurry up and drop down better!'...

I thought that they would change stage 2 after watchign the 1st epi, but too my horror the next week saw the same life jacket/shirt pulling/pushing cat fights :X idk wat to change it to really, but.... just change it? heck even an under water treasure hunt would be better? and cheap too. Then the team that finishes faster in the 1st round gets to say... enter the pool 30sec earlier or something. NOW that would be some real advantage.

Stage 3 is boring too... yeah some bits are tough in the sense that its not something an overweight, unfit kid like me can complete... but with sasuke, the obstacles are like... insane...! and with the same obstacles every week... it gets kinda boring. well in part this is just ONE variaty series, unlike sasuke where 1 completion is held every half a year (and they have like a hundred participants, so only the interesting ones were shown on tv)... i dont think the program has so much funding as to build a brand new obstacle course per episode, that would be kind of unrealistic... but i wish the rules were more simple and clear cut. Say no re-trys of obstacles. If you fail an obstacle, it adds 5 minutes (or watever no. of minutes) to your time. Fastest team wins. No need to bother about no. of failures per team thing... just timing only. You can really tell that the program is boring when the two hosts have really nothing better to say. And its not that they are lousy hosts, i've seen them excel over and over hosting many other hosts over the years, many of which i've enjoyed watching. But this... it really got them stumped for words. 8 person doing the same obstacles per week... no audience besides the team members to help with the mood either. Its just... gah. When you watch sasuke you'd realise the commentator talk abt all sorts of seemingly irrelavant stuff abt the participant. Like age, occupation, hobbies etc etc. Here the hosts have barely any knowledge of the participants (not their fault, i know), and can only comment on the game. Which for most part isnt much, considering the not so high standard of our participants (hellow, how to compete with ppl who train for sasuke 365 days a year and even build the set in their backyards???).

Really made me appreiciate the sasuke commentator...

And how abt VSA? Its still not exciting enough for me to watch like for a full day, but then again you cant do that for most variety shows. The 'voice of angel' for VSA is good too... both of them. Much better then the water margin hosts (ok, maybe those two arent cut out for hosting this kind of variety? or maybe its just the whole format of the show that makes it pales so much in comparision to vsa, or even any random taiwan variety) With the commentator + the live audience, or heck even w/o the commentator, the atmosphere is there. The chanting, screaming... no live audience, no atmosphere. VSA also has a variety of games, and tho some of the games appear like almost every week, there are still some swaps here and there to keep you on your toes. They also try and improve the games to make it more exciting, more balanced... watever. Goodness knows how many times the scoring for pinall runner have changed. If you look at the old episodes the values of the pink and yellow balls have been tweaked a few times... As 'law by law' the Japanese are when it comes to wokr/many things, variety shows is one place where they are not. Like how they change the number of red cans in kicking sniper according to how much the gap between the teams are, or how korokoro viking scoring can change etc etc... all to make the game closer and more exciting. Sometimes i cant help but feel that they've over done it tho, when it seems like they were purposely playing a fool to lose... or like when they send out sho for cliff climb lol. (poor sho)

heh, sg still has some ways to go when it comes to this kind of variety :X

Meh either way, i cant wait to catch vsa on the 13th :)

In the mean time i'll be watching the latest episodes of hna, vsa and anshi every week XD