Countries with a pro-Japanese slant; the detective who loved criminals; CM of the Week: Asahi Beer

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Countries with a pro-Japanese slant; the detective who loved criminals; CM of the Week: Asahi Beer

By Philip Brasor

Jun 26, 2015

The theme of “Mirai Seiki Zipangu” (“Future Century Japan“; TV Tokyo, Mon., 10 p.m.) is Japan’s role in the world, and the series has a subseries covering countries with a “pro-Japanese” slant that most Japanese “don’t know about.”

Number 7 in the series is about Hungary, whose distinction is that it has a lot of features similar to Japan, which go beyond the hardly remarkable fact that surnames in Hungary come before given names. Hungarians love their hot springs, and the show visits one of the world’s largest outdoor baths, right in the middle of Budapest. Also, Hungarians have a custom of bowing, and elementary schools teach kids how to use a soroban (abacus). Also, Suzuki Motors was one of the first foreign companies to set up factories in Hungary after the end of Soviet control.

In the new drama series, “Konkatsu Keiji” (“Matchmaking Detective“; Nippon TV, Thurs., 11:59 p.m.), Ayumi Ito plays Yoneko Hanada, a police detective who works out of Tokyo’s Ryogoku precinct. Hanada is good at her work, but having just turned 35 she’s acutely aware of the clock ticking and is desperate to find a husband. The only trouble is, the guys she falls for all turn out to be criminals.

In the premiere episode, Hanada goes to a matchmaking party and runs into Junpei, an old high school classmate she hasn’t seen in 17 years. They start dating, and then she’s assigned to the murder of a black-market moneylender. As she investigates the case she realizes that Junpei is one of the suspects.

Every week the series features another potential husband with a big problem.

CM of the Week

Asahi Beer: Now that Mao Asada has returned to competitive figure skating, she’s back in front of the cameras making commercials, including one for Asahi Beer in which she sells their new non-alcoholic “beer flavored” beverage, Style Balance. If the name makes no sense, rest assured the company understands your confusion.

Asada is seen biting into a huge hero sandwich, and then, for “balance,” sipping from a can of the new brew, thus implying that the calories from the sandwich will be offset by the drink. If that isn’t clear enough, the camera zooms back to reveal one Mao sitting at one end of an enormous hero sandwich and another Mao sitting at the other end, as if it were a seesaw. There is such a thing as too much information.