Waratte Iitomo! Autumn SP - Nodame Cantabile Team

November 18, 2006 | 26 Comments

Introduction + Nodame Team 01 (26.2MB, AVI format)
Nodame Team 02 (37.4MB, AVI format)
Nodame Team 03 (52.7MB, AVI format)
Nodame Team 04 (49.3MB, AVI format)

This is a light entertainment mostly for Nodame Cantabile fans but those who are interested in Japanese game/variety show might be interested to see it as well. 「笑っていいとも!」- Waratte Iitomo! is basically a variety/game show featuring stars from various TV shows competing in a typical variety show games. The show is hosted by Kazuyoshi Morita, and this time around his co-host is Nakai Masahiro, the eldest member of SMAP. This is basically an Autumn Special episode aired on the 6th of October this year, so it's slightly late but I find it amusing so I decide to feature it here. The contestants are picked from variety different TV series and teamed based on the TV series that they are participating in. There are a total of 5 teams: Nodame Cantabile team, Yakusha Damashii team, Boku no Aruku Michi team, Dr.Koto - Shinryoujo 2006 team, and Waratte Iitomo! team (which just consists of several comedians).

Because the program itself is long-winded, I decided to just focus on the Nodame Cantabile team. This team is basically comprised of all 6 main cast members from Nodame Cantabile drama. This includes Ueno Juri (Noda "Nodame" Megumi), Tamaki Hiroshi (Chiaki Shinichi), Eita (Mine Ryuutarou), Koide Keisuke (Okuyama Masumi), Mizukawa Asami (Kiyora Miki), and Takenata Naoto (Franz Strezemann). I must say that I'm surprised that the 6 actors seem to get along with each other very well. Most actors operate like freelance designer in that your working colleagues constantly change from project to project. I can imagine how hard it must be to work well with your colleagues and suddenly have to move to another series, where you have to know a different set of colleagues. Anyway, judging from this game show, it's easy to see why the series feels cohesive and it's because the actors like working with each other.

The first game is a Charades game where the rest of the contestants must guess the name of an action/series/items performed by the person on stage. They can't say anything apart from the name of their series while doing the gestures. Since Ueno Juri and the others are from Nodame Cantabile, the only thing that they can say repeatedly is "Nodame Cantabile". Because time is also limited, it's probably better to pass on a particularly difficult phrase so they'll have more time to figure out other phrases. I have to say that some of the things that the actors do in this segment are quite amusing. How the hell did they guess that Ueno Juri was describing "Hit Takeshi" (the famous actor from Battle Royale) by making a V shape across her body? And I can't tell that Mizukawa Asami was trying to describe "Kamen Rider" just from her movement alone. Eita describing "Yopparai" (drunkard) is probably one of the highlights of the show.

The most amusing mime, however, was when Tamaki Hiroshi jumping up and down just to suggest "Hanabi" (fireworks). Wouldn't it be more effective for him to look upwards and suggests explosions by opening and closing his hands? My favourite is when Ueno Juri does her best Suzumiya Haruhi impersonation to describe "Akkanbe" (making fool of someone). Koide Keisuke trying to demonstrate "Ultraman" was also priceless. That's definitely not how I remember Ultraman's moves. Speaking of Koide Keisuke, it's weird seeing him looking very different from his role as Masumi. And thanks to the Wiki, I just found out that he actually plays a role in Tada, Kimi wo Aishiteru with Tamaki Hiroshi. Anyway, at the end of this segment, everyone has his/her own idea on how Ultraman supposed to act. And for those who want to know the scores, the Nodame team ends with 360 points at the end of this round, which is quite good in comparison to the other teams.

The second major competition is an archery competition. In this competition, three people from the team are selected to become the archers. Out of these three, one gets to be the Golden Arrow archer, which means that whatever point the person gets, it'll be doubled. The Nodame Cantabile team chose Tamaki Hiroshi to be their Golden Arrow archer. That means he gets to do it last and the first one to represent them is Eita. Now, here's the funny part, when Eita is about to do it, he asks everyone screams "Kakkoii" (cool). Because he's embarassed, he asks them to allow him to concentrate. However, when the time comes to shoot the arrow, he only gets 50 points. Nakai decides to make fun of him afterwards which would culminate in one funny gag when Tamaki Hiroshi gets his turn. The next one to do the task is Ueno Juri. As it turns out, she's quite good at archery and scores 200 points for the team.

The last person to represent the team is Tamaki Hiroshi and he scores...200 points but since he's also the Golden Arrow archer, the point is doubled and he gets 400 points for the team. Everyone is impressed by this and thinks that he's cool. To rub salt into Eita's wound, evil Nakai decides to push the rest of the Nodame team to congratulate Tamaki Hiroshi. Well, everyone except Eita. Everyone eventually realises what happens and gets a good laugh at Eita's expense. It's good to know that there aren't that much formality between the actors and they are quite eager to laugh at each other's misfortune. Especially since the rest of the teams are not like this. Eita is being a good sport too, pretending to be embarassed and looking like a cast-off. Overall, this is one of the two highlights of this show. I definitely didn't expect Ueno Juri and Tamaki Hiroshi to be quite good at archery. Although they probably did some practice prior to this game.

At the last competition, the scores are as follows: 2100 points for Yakusha Damashii! team, 2360 points for Boku no Aruku Michi team, 1540 points for Dr.Koto team, and 2000 points for Waratte Iitomo! team. The Nodame team is the last team to do the competition and their current score is 1140. It means they need 1220 or more to be the winner of this game show. With that in mind, the last game for the team starts. This game is basically the same like Charades game except that it requires two people from each team to demonstrate the action. An example of this is "Oshikura Manjuu" (Trying to keep warm by pushing into each other with your back. Kids do this even though it's not effective). It's really amusing to see what the actors are willing to do to demonstrate a particular action. Tamaki Hiroshi's attempt to explain "Jouba" (riding a horse) is something that I never expected a famous actor will do in a game show.

Once the game ends, the final tally becomes: 2490 for the Nodame Cantabile team, which means the team is the winner of the game and receives 2,000,000 Yen (around $17,000). Isn't this kind of small for a game show present? Nakai then tells them that there is one last challenge which can earn them another 1,000,000 Yen (around $8,500) if they win. If they fail the task, however, the 1,000,000 Yen will be split evenly for the 4 other teams. That kind of suck. And the challange is for one member from the team to pull a table cloth from a table without causing 10 or so wine glasses on top of it to fall. It sounds like an insane task and Ueno Juri gets the honour to do it for the team. Much to everyone's surprise, she actually did it! I think everyone knows how difficult this task is and didn't expect Ueno Juri to be able to do it. That's the end of the game and the Nodame team wins 3,000,000 Yen!!

Impression:

Nodame Cantabile team banzai!! I can't tell you how happy I I was after watching this show. I was a bit depressed after watching Nodame Cantabile episode 5 due to the way the story unfolds but this cheered me up immediately. For other people, this probably looks like a silly game show but because I really root for the team, I ended up enjoying it thoroughly. Well, that's not really true. I only enjoyed the Nodame team part of the game. The rest is kind of boring in my opinion. Game shows are funny thing. I don't normally go out of my way to watch them but occasionally, I get hooked when I see a person or a team that I root for. I basically watched this because I wanted to know how the actors work with each other behind the scene and I'm glad to see that they seem to get along well with each other. Ueno Juri and Mizukawa Asumi to get along well since they don't appear in that many scenes together in the actual drama.

The best moment of the game was Ueno Juri pulling off the table cloth without spilling the wine glass. She looks kind of Nodame-like when she jumped around looking excited after completing the feat. Tamaki Hiroshi's archery segment and the resulting hilarious segment that came out of it was also equally enjoyable to see. I really wish that this game show will be included in one of the DVD extras but I highly doubt that will be the case. If anything though, I hope the DVD cover will look like one of those sign that Ueno Juri carry around when the team introduced themselves for the first time. Well, that's pretty much it. I can't believe I actually typed this much about a game show. But I figure it'll make a nice break from all of the anime episode entries that I've written thus far. And sorry about the quality of the images but I just feel lucky to be able to get a copy of the show to begin with. If you have better copy of the raw, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. Last but not least, tell me what you think of the program.

© memento 2003