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This week Televiews toasts the magic of TV and its power to show you things you never thought you'd see.
Had enough of this spring's dreary school dramas with their overriding emphasis on bullying? Ready for some light-hearted campus entertainment? Well, here comes Hana Zakari no Kimitachi e--Ikemen Paradaisu (To You in Full Bloom--Ikemen Paradise, July 3, 9 p.m., Fuji network), a series I'm downright eager to check out.
Maki Horikita stars as a Japanese returnee from the United States who disguises herself as a boy to attend an all-male, live-in academy full of "ikemen" (good-looking guys). Not only will this series give viewers a chance to analyze what qualifies as "ikemen" nowadays, but the casting will provide veteran expats a few chuckles. You see, the principal of this all-guys high school will be none other than that 1980s idol sensation and consummate entertainment world survivor Seiko Matsuda. Yes, Seiko plays the "kocho sensei."
They say if you live long enough, you'll see almost everything, but I never thought I'd see the day Seiko would be cast as a secondary school principal. Yet a series that attempts this has got to have some redeeming comedy value, right? I'm tuning in.
For real fantasy, TBS offers up every parent's dream.
What parents haven't wished to get inside their teenager's head to figure out just what is going on in there. Who hasn't wished the kids could understand how hard it is to be a parent? Papa to Musume no Nanoka Kan (Seven Days for Dad and Daughter, starting 9 p.m., July 1) does just that.
It's the classic Japanese "tenkosei" plot wherein the girl's brain inhabits the guy's body and vice versa. But the plot takes on a generational twist when dad (Hiroshi Tachi) and his rebellious daughter (Yui Aragaki) switch bodies and learn to understand each other.
Talking of dads, Father's Day is coming up. Who is the entertainment world star TV Gaido readers thought would make the best dad? The magazine's survey winner is: comedian Joji Tokoro.
The rest of the summer lineup is more predictable. In the sequels category, Takanori Jinnai returns as Beat Takeshi's dad in yet another rendering of Kikujiro to Saki (Kikujiro and Saki, Thursdays, 9 p.m., TV Asahi network). In the gourmet drama department, Koichi Domoto of Kinki Kids plays the prince of raw fish in Sushi Oji (Sushi Prince, Fridays, 11:15 p.m., TV Asahi network). TV viewers wishing to escape hot and humid Honshu can spend the summer with six agricultural university students on a Hokkaido farm in Fuji TV's Ushi ni Negai o: Rabu ando Famu (Wish Upon Cow: Love and Farm, 10 p.m., Tuesdays, starting July 3, 10:10 p.m.).
And if you can't decide what to send for midyear gifts, you might like to browse through the department store scenario starting July 5 on Fuji at 10 p.m. But be forewarned, it will reflect local TV's usual fixation with physical attributes. Tentatively and pathetically titled Yama Onna, Kabe Onna (Voluptuous Woman, Flat-chested Woman), it stars Misaki Ito as a fashionable, talented employee whose only problem is a complex about her chest size that is complicated by the arrival of a voluptuous new employee. Discovering how they intend to magically fashion a 10-week plot out of that scenario may be the only attraction.
And here's a bit of pleasant magic: Takako Tokiwa, one of Japan's most talented actresses, returns to the small screen Saturday night in Gyokuran (9:00-11:06 p.m., TV Asahi network). Frustrated in career and love, she travels to Shanghai to find her future and discovers her family's past as well. Anything with Tokiwa in it is worth a glance.
More Magic of TV: Japanese TV just loves a good magician. From Princess Tenko to David Copperfield, illusion and sleight of hand are applauded.
Sometimes the networks even go beyond the illusion to explain to viewers how the rabbit got out of the hat.
But when it comes to the magic of scandals, the networks' lack of investigative follow-up and inability to push for accountability, often leave viewers clueless and wondering just where that rabbit went to after all.
The biggest rabbits in the room are the famous "bow and make it go away" acts: A scandal pops out of the hat. The perpetrators all line up in a row and "bow it bye-bye," trying to look as repentent as possible. Then said incident fades, just like a good magician's rabbit disappears back into the hat, or it drops into the court and media rabbit hole, often not to poke its head out again for years or even decades.
A really impressive media magic act would involve the networks grabbing a scandal by the tail and relentlessly pursuing it until accountability is achieved.
Will the recent pension scandal be the rabbit that just can't be stuffed back in the hat?
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