‘I Survived a Japanese Game Show’ started its second summer season tonight, 6/17, on ABC after ‘Wipeout’. The reality/game show hybrid transplants 12 Americans to Japan to compete on ‘Majide’, a Japanese game show specially produced for ABC. To produce maximum drama, the contestants follow the reality show staple of cohabitating in one house but with a twist; this house comes with a den mother: Mama-San. Each week through various contests, two contestants are chosen to battle it out to see who stays in Japan and who goes back to America. The final contestant wins $250,000 and can say “I survived a Japanese game show!”

The premiere introduced the 12 contestants through brief snippets of the ‘Majide’ host, Rome Kanda, surprising them at home or work and then sweeping them away to Japan. The contestants were divided into two teams of six, Green Tigers and Red Robots, and then started their first contest, Rabbit Fire. One team dressed in Velcro suits tried to carry boxes across an obstacle beam while the other team shot sticky balls in an attempt to dislodge the boxes or contestants. The Green Tigers won the contest and received an advantage for the next day's contest.

This contest, Wheel of Human Torpedo, had each team pick four people to compete. After dressing in spandex, they were led to a Merry Go Round-like contraption where one person sat in the middle and was designated the “shooter” while the other three were attached by their feet to the middle, covered in lotion, and designated “torpedoes”. The shooter then released the torpedoes into boxes with the intent of knocking the most boxes down. The Green Tigers won again, without the need of their extra torpedo advantage, and received a trip to Mt. Fuji while the Red Robots were tasked with cleaning a section of the Japanese subway.

During the cleaning task, one of the Red Robots (Kimberly) complained about doing manual labor and ensured her place in the final battle along with another Red Robot (Yari) who did not perform well in the first two contests. For the final battle, Big Spider Yanky Danky, the two contestants dressed as spiders and had 3 minutes to pop balloons to get different colored butterfly parts to match to different colored pedestals… all while attached to a bungee cord that was snapped back at random times. Both contestants matched 12 butterfly pieces but Yari matched the most complete butterflies so Kimberly was the first contestant sent back to America.

The premiere was packed with contests and tasks but did not show many conflicts between the cast other than Kimberly’s complaining about cleaning. While the unique contestant-degrading contests provide interesting viewing (next week look for contestants crawling over oiled sumo wrestlers), ‘ISAJGS’ will need some more contestant drama to be as successful as last year’s edition.

source : http://www.examiner.com

I Survived a Japanese Game Show premiered tonight on ABC.

The second season of ABC's 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show', premiered this evening. This is my first season of watching the show. I have to admit, I was not impressed. I will watch a few more episodes of 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show', before I make my decision of whether I actually enjoy the show, or not.

There are twelve contestants who are divided into two teams of six.

The Green Tigers:

Debbie Kaufman – 22 – Easton, CT

Megan Bentley – 28 – Chicago, IL

Brent Alexander – 28 – Miami, FL

Linda Plaxen – 32 – Los Angeles, CA

Bob “Bobaloo” Koenig – 35 – Los Angeles, CA

Cathy Grosam – 36 – Bartlett, IL

The Red Robots:

Yari Agramonte – 22 – Yarmouth Port, MA

Justin Brown – 22 – Carbondale, PA

Kimberley Whittaker – 25 – Philadelphia, PA

Dan Barbour – 25 – Shrewsbury, MA

Jamie Lewis – 25 – Fairless Hills, PA

Drew Sealey – 29 – St. Louis, MO

The first game of 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show', was "Rabbit Fire". The contestants had to dress up in rabbit suits to complete this level. Each team had to carry a Japanese meal box, across a very narrow plank, while the other 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show' team, threw balls at them, trying to knock them off. The team who successfully carried the most boxes across, won.

The Green Tigers - 58 meal boxes.

The Red Robots - 57 meal boxes.

The next game of 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show', was “Wheel of Human Torpedoes". In this game, the contestants had to wear spandex! Nasty. There were four members chosen from each team, one was designated as the launcher, the other three were to be launched.

The launcher of 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show', basically threw the three other contestants across the floor, hoping to knock down more cans with his team mates, than the other 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show' contestants.

The Green Tigers won, that means that the team is safe. No one will have to go home.

Since the 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show' team of The Red Robots lost, they had to choose two team members to compete in the next game of "Big Spider Yanky Danky". The Red Robots contestant who lost this 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show' one on one competition, went home.

The two 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show' contestants from The Red Robots chosen to compete were, Yari and Kimberly. Each had to dress in a spider suit, they looked more like penguins to me, but, that is beside the point. Each 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show' contestant was attached to a springy rope. They then had to pop balloons, searching for butterflies. Each 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show' contestant then had to climb an incline and put the right colored butterfly, in the right spot, before the rope jerked them back.

In the end, Yari got to stay and Kimberly had to go home. Even though they both got the same number of butterflies. I must have missed something.

I think that the reason I did not enjoy 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show', is the fact that I hated reading the captions, translating Japanese to English. The other problem I had with 'I Survived a Japanese Game Show', was I felt that the Japanese were being condescending toward Americans. It seemed as if they were thinking..."Look what they are willing to do for $250,000."

source : http://www.examiner.com