Musings - Japanese TV edition

Above is a pic of one of my favorite buildings in Japan, along the river in Matsudo.

Which doesn't relate at all to today's post in any way besides that the picture was taken in Japan. But anyway.

Today I'd like to toss out a few thoughts about Japanese TV.

• Just as I've mentioned before that any Japanese TV program not specifically about something will eventually turn into a show where you watch famous people eat stuff and rave about how delicious it is (including $1 snacks bought at a convenience store),
• Any Japanese TV show about travelling will eventually turn into a show where you watch a famous comedian or idol bungee jump from a tower in Australia. I think I can state with 100% certainty that no one in Japan really wants to watch this, nor are we impressed or scared anymore.
• About once a week you read a story in the news about someone getting arrested for taking upskirt shots of some woman on a train or walking up stairs or something. It's to the point where you can even see in train stations warnings not to do this. In one of the airports I went to this last year (I think Haneda), they had a sign in English telling people not to do it. Strange. But...
• When you watch dramas on TV in Japan or variety shows, you always see "skirt cam" shots. What do I mean by skirt cam? It's exactly like it sounds. You have a camera set up specifically to give you a view from the feet up to the stomach area, focused on the woman's knees or more often the region above socks leading up to the edge of their skirt. In a drama when the camera is showing you what the male lead's eyes are looking at I suppose I can understand it (sort of), but you see the same thing in all kinds of places, including news programs, where they love to have a long shot of high school girls walking down the street where you can't see anything but legs and dresses. I guess they're at least not shooting upskirts per se, but the focus on leg and skirt shots is just weird and creepy.
• One thing good about JP TV I've noticed over the years is the relatively large number of shows with female leads. Yes, the number of dramas with a woman in the lead role is still lower than the number with a male lead, but it's better than it was when I first started watching TV here, and I would bet is now better than TV in the US, especially because a lot of the shows with female leads here are now not specifically "shows for women" like they are in the US. There are a number of leading ladies in Japan, for example Keiko Kitagawa, Erika Toda, Yuki Amami or Ryoko Shinohara, who are by default always the star of whatever show they're in, and almost always play roles that don't specifically matter that they're a woman (tho of course the fact does come up in the show).
• Of course the same can't be said about non-Japanese or people of mixed race, who rarely even get secondary roles in JP dramas - they're usually cast in much smaller parts as minor thugs, other friends, or more often extras in crowd scenes. Same goes with LGBT actors, who almost always are seen on TV as comedic extras.

OK that's enough for now. The new season of dramas and anime just started this week, so I'll try to post again soon with my comments on the new lineup.