‘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