With more and more game shows with a Japanese theme being aired on TV you knew someone would have to do a pretty solid writeup on them:
No one would ever call the television staple commonly referred to as the game show "subtle." It is, after all, a genre that gleefully deconstructs television into a handful of cardinal sins: envy, greed, and occasionally, lust.Check more out down at Asian Pop.
But the difference between inane and sublime is in many ways a matter of scale. That's why a genre that plays as crass in America -- Big money! Big money! -- has evolved into something like performance art in Japan, where the full-frontal game show experience pulls no punches in the quest to entertain (especially not the ones aimed directly at the crotch).