Sunday 7 December 2014

Always watching: Downtown

A long time ago, before I had the internet, my interest in Japanese culture hadn’t really got much further than “aren’t their women pretty, and why don’t they translate their video games quicker?” I found a book in a second-hand shop called “The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture.” I bought it, and started on my way down this long and winding road.


In this book was an article about Downtown, a comedy duo of Matsumoto Hitoshi and Hamada Masatoshi. They stuck in my memory because they were famous for being the people who paid most tax in Japan.

When I finally got online, I started looking for their stuff and found a few videos here and there. I even began subbing thanks to them. I found some streaming subs on a website that I can’t even remember anymore for a Five Rangers game that I found hilarious. I made soft subs for a raw on another website (Gaki-no-tsukai.com) and it’s still being uploaded to this day. This makes me very happy, and I still owe a debt of thanks to Spacecoyote for letting me make an srt file of her subs.


Anyway, I don’t follow them regularly, but every now and again, I feel like watching a few of their shows. Recently, I checked on Shibatabread blog to see if he’d subbed any new episodes, and he had. It was the first part of the King of Bikkuri Face Grand Prix, and it had me weeping with laughter. Some comedians, in a hidden camera situation, have to pull off the most absurd suprised expression without the other people present noticing something was wrong.


I absolutely couldn’t stop laughing at this episode, and I’m now clicking on his blog regularly to see if part two is up, even though he’s said it’ll be a while. Plus, I recommend you spend some time on his blog. It’s full of great Downtown stuff. Also, Zurui’s site is good too. But only if you have adblock. Otherwise you may be too annoyed to find the videos funny once you finally get to download them.

Oh, and also on Shitababread's blog, this is a great piece of stand-up comedy from Hyodo Daiki. I liked it so much, I left a comment!



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