Game Shows

Japan is known for its funny and bizarre game shows. An American portrayal of Japanese game show called 

I Survived a Japanese Game Show (originally titled Big in Japan) is an American reality show that saw its first season premiere on ABC June 24, 2008. The show followed a group of Americans, who leave the United States for Japan where they competed in a Japanese style game show. The winner takes home US $250,000. The series won both the Best Reality prize and the overall prize at the 2009 Rose d'Or ceremony.

In Season One, contestants are informed that they are to take part in a reality-style competition, but not informed of the nature of the show. They are flown to Tokyo, Japan, and taken to the Toho a Studios, where it is revealed that they are to compete on a Japanese game show called Majide. For Season Two, Majide host Rome Kanda surprised each of the contestants in their hometowns informing them they were going to Japan. They are broken up into teams and, in the first six episodes of Season One and first seven episodes and the first half of the final episode of Season Two, competed in games against each other. The winning team was given a reward activity while the losing team was given a punishment activity. In the second season, the first game played saw the winning team have an advantage into the second game, where rewards and punishments were handed out afterward. In the final episode, the first two games reverted to the rules of Season One. Two members of the losing team are chosen to compete in an additional game head-to-head where the loser of that game is eliminated. (In general, the losing team chooses its two players as a team, although in the event that they fail to come to a decision, their opponents make the selection for them.) If the losing team has only two players remaining, then both have to compete in the elimination game. In the final part, the teams are broken up and the four remaining players face three elimination challenges in Season One, and final three facing two elimination games in Season Two; in all cases, the losing contestant was eliminated from the show and carried offstage and sent back to the United States by the "sayonara mob" dressed in black suits.

The series followed not only the Majide competition, but also the contestants' activities backstage and outside the game show in reality style. The contestants lived in a house together in the suburb of Kasai, with a Mama-San (Kozue Saito), who generally expects the contestants to live in line with Japanese culture and customs. In season 2, they live in the Majide Guest House with Mama-san.

The host of season one was Japanese-American Tony Sano, whose additional television credits include MTV Spring Break Japan and a recurring role on the The CW4Kids series Kamen Rider. About the show, Sano commented, "It's going to be like nothing American audiences have seen on network television." (Matt Hurwitz, Associated Press) Episodes are narrated by Robert Cait.