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Japanese Variety Shows
A great way to enjoy practicing Japanese is watching variety shows. Japanese people especially the majority of Japanese women watch TV dramas and shows. Unfortunately you will need to know some basic Japanese to enjoy these shows but most of them have Japanese subtitles and can provide some reading practice as well.
In America, we do not really have variety shows. The definition of a variety show is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. (also known as variety arts or variety entertainment) It is normally introduced by a master of ceremonies or host. Besides Japanese food and anime, one of the things I enjoy the most is their variety show.
Recommendation
My favorite variety to watch in Japan is Monitoring (ニンゲン観察バラエティモニタリング). I enjoy this show to the point of creating an alarm to go off every Thursday at 8pm (TBS).
As an American who enjoys Jackass (movie), I really enjoy the various creative pranks that they do to regular Japanese people. Although it is some what similar to Jackass, I would say it is very different in content. In Jackass you have a lot of grotesque, bloody, and very violent acts but in Monitoring, they will have young Olympic athletes like the below photo dress up as an elderly and pretend to go to a beginners class. Here they will show how bad they are at that sport but after a few minutes later get extremely good. Just like the name Monitoring, they monitor peoples reactions.
For someone who enjoys horror movies, you might enjoy one of their pranks in which they wait for unsuspecting passengers to ride a bus, make the lights turn off, handle fall down, and make the same looking girl (looks like the girl from the grudge) appear from out of no where. They even have a haunted school episode where famous people will go to and various ghost like noises will appear.
A lot of Japanese people watch this show because they are able to get a famous people very often. Sometimes they will allow random people to pretend that they are dating them and see how their friend reacts. Other times, famous…
