Blatantly swiped from Mainichi Weekly

[mhirtes]

http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/0212/0 ... murai.html

Samurai shows stealing entertainment spotlight

By Ryann Connell
Staff writer

December 3, 2002

Who cares if it's cheap and nasty? What does it matter if the acting is shoddy and the make-up appalling? So what if you can tell the ending just minutes after the start. It may not be perfect and it's certainly not Hollywood, but samurai drama, and an entire subculture built around it, are all the rage now in Japan, according to Aera (12/9).

Samurai shows are dominating Japan's TV ratings, sending the traditional fan favorites of variety programs and "trendy" dramas falling by the wayside and people are cashing in on the feudal boom like never before.

Kazuhiro Miyajima grew up watching samurai shows and has remained a staunch fan now as he approaches his 40s. Following the October launch of Jidaigeki (Samurai Drama) Magazine, he's now riding on the full-steam-ahead samurai drama bandwagon. His rag has special features on samurai drama favorites "Mito Komon" and "Kozure Okami (Lone Wolf and Cub)" and its 50,000 circulation is boosted considerably more by young people than the middle-aged men he'd thought would make up its stable readership.

"We've got a strong wind backing us," he tells Aera.

Much of that bluster comes from television, where not a day goes by without at least one show featuring top-knotted actors. Even "Mito Komon" reruns are demolishing the opposition on the small screen, though Kotaro Satomi, who plays the star of the show where a magistrate acting on behalf of the Shogun travels through medieval Japan righting wrongs, is not surprised.

"Samurai dramas are filled with scenes about emotions, filial piety and loyalty. It's easy to tell the difference between the good guys and bad guys and the messages the dramas can pass on cover a wide area," he tells Aera. "Samurai drama are probably popular with modern Japanese because they contain so much related to the unique feelings of the Japanese." Small-screen dominance is not enough for feudal fare. Sky PerfecTV, Japan's biggest satellite TV provider, has a channel devoted exclusively to samurai drama that is one of the few networks having little trouble attracting subscribers.

In the four years since it started televising in July 1998, the samurai drama channel attracted contracts with 850,000 households. A cable TV service that started in June this year has already drawn in 1.72 million households.

Fans are not just the expected staple of 70-something or 80-something grandmas and grandpas looking for something to wile away their hours, but Japan's most eagerly sought consumer group of teen-age girls and women in their 20s.

"If you watch the first five minutes of a samurai drama, you basically know how the story is going to turn out," columnist Soichiro Ishihara tells Aera. "But this known harmony of the samurai drama puts people at ease, which is what modern Japanese are probably looking for at a time when they've got no idea what lies ahead for them."

Silver screen success has also come for samurai shows, with "Tasogare Seibei," a movie about a low-class samurai raising his two daughters alone, ranking number two at the box office in Japan for the past three weeks and already attracting over 560,000 viewers.

Other media have gotten into the samurai act, too.

"Chonmage Tengoku (Topknot Heaven)" is a CD packed with old songs connected to samurai drama. Sony Music House would have been happy to see it pick up sales of about 6,000 units. But, since its September release, Topknot Heaven has become a firm favorite among people in their 20s and 30s, selling over 50,000 copies and even making the Top 40 on the Oricon charts, Japan's equivalent to Billboard. A follow up is already in the works.

Just to prove the samurai drama boom isn't all just fun and games, even the lucrative video game business has been sucked into the craze. "Aku Daikan Evil Magistrate)" is a game about a nasty judge who uses cakes to buy bodyguards and punks who protect him from the defenders of whatever justice there was in feudal Japan. The malicious magistrate, who also happens to be a typical character in most samurai drama, can also defend himself using a series of wicked booby traps.


"There's not a Japanese alive who can't relate to the evil magistrate," Koki Yamamoto, the game's creator, tells Aera. "That just shows how much people love evil magistrates and samurai drama."