150613 Arashi ni Shiyagare - Full Episode Review

[nijininare.livejournal.com]

Sharing a full episode review from my journal to this community. Thought more people could be able to read it here. I have to say Tanaka AD is one of my favorite people. I mean seriously, how many people can piss MatsuJun off? Hahaha!

*disclaimer*
The LJ cuts are going crazy. For some reason you should be able to click on the segment you watch to watch. It isn't appearing the way it. I'll try to fix it as soon as I figure out what's wrong.

ARASHI NI SHIYAGARE 2015.06.13

To be extremely honest, the episode preview was “okay”. I didn’t feel particularly excited by the segments nor by the guest. Let’s be honest, Matsumoto Jun never fails to deliver on his challenges even if he has a number of less than impressive moments, in the end he always manages to pull it off.

Nino’s segment was about the difficulty of being left handed. It doesn’t seem as interesting as his previous segments…and I’m saying this as someone who likes his segment. (His is second to Leader's then Sho's segment comes a close third).

Matsumoto’s caption was: Ritualistic Okonomiyaki making. (The kanji refers to a Shinto Ritual but it can also mean superhuman, ritualistic, divine. I thought superhuman is the best.)

EPISODE REVIEW

The guest for the episode was actor Katsumura Masanobu. Hmm…doesn’t he seem a little unexcited?

Caption: If it were the Edo period, you'd be dead. - Nino

No worries about the image above. (I think he’s thrilled to be there…deep, deep, deep down.) He explains why he’s sleepy—it’s because of his age. Hence the caption in the screen capture above.The introduction was fairly short and it proceeded to the Unnoticed Memorial Day Project.

This week: Iron Man Day

Usually “Iron Man” to me, synonymous to Marvel OR to some long distance runner. Luckily ARASHI’s production team found a way to find less common and much more amusing iron men. True to the humorous nature of variety shows, the iron men presented in the VTR are more both astounding and amusing record holders. Here’s a preview:

Since the Iron Men presented are a little…unconventional—that sets the mood for the activity ARASHI will be doing with their guests. Iron man challenges!

First Challenge: Contest on Who can Hold an Ice Ball the Longest!

T/N: Looks like they'll do some fortune telling isntead of some iron man challenge. Haha

Imagine holding a 7kg ball of ice…4 of the ARASHI members weren’t even able to make it passed 20seconds. Jun gave up immediately, Nino followed shortly after. Sho and Leader tried to hold on (hehe. pun intended) but to no avail. But Aiba-san and Katsumura-san are still holding on. Who do you think will win?

Second Challenge: Slurping Tokoroten in one go without choking.

So to make this challenge understandable. Tokoroten is usually eaten as a side dish or appetizer. It’s a jelly like noodle made from seaweed and it’s served with vinegar. Now, during the times I eat this slurping too much can take away the fun of eating this tangy noodle food item. I can’t imagine how it is so slurp all those noodles in one go, seems like hell.

It’s an all or nothing point system. They’ll have to slurp it without slurping or they get zero points. Nino started off by saying “I want more vinegar with this…”

Question is did he get to slurp it?

MatsuJun...are you okay?

I won’t divulge details but let’s just say both Matsumoto Jun and Ninomiya Kazunari brought laughs to this episode. Just look at Riidain the screen capture below.

This was cut halfway through to make way for the main segments—Ninomiya’s Little Ambition and Matsumoto Jun’s .

Topic for the Week: Make the suffering of the left handed known.

It starts with Nino being interviewed by the staff about being left handed. Nino says it is hard because almost everything is made for right handed people.

Is it just me or does Nino looks good even sans-make up?

Followed by a short VTR first interviewing left handed people on what is the hardest. The three that were mentioned were:

• 1. Kanji strokes are usually made for right handed*


• 2. Writing in general lefts a messy left hand for the lefties.


• 3. Trump cards’ disappear when you fan them out to the left. (I never actually noticed this before…)

Then a doctor goes through the explanation of left handed and right handedness. Apparently the ratio is 9:1 now with right handed being the majority.

The doctor clip ends and it flashes to a house with Nino and some left handed entertainers saying that being left handed is difficult and it presents the main part of Nino’s segment. “It’s difficult to be left handed! movie”

It proceeds with multiple scenarios of lefties from office work to bowling.

To be honest some of them were just plain ridiculous. You’ll know which two I’m talking about when you watch it.We know Nino doesn’t bowl that way on VS Arashi.


Anyway, they were able to show that left handed people have the disadvantage since almost everything being produced considers the right-handed ergonomics (from ladling soup to cameras). And the final video clip was pretty good. Overall it was good. Nothing new, nothing too interesting.

Goal for this episode: Cooly make okonomiyaki

He’ll be learning from a the Owner/Chef of a restaurant named: No Reservations. He Chef seems pretty confident. Different from the previous teachers of MJ. Looks like someone’s going to take the spotlight.

Caption: I’m probably the coolest in the world when it comes to okonomiyaki making.

He had three “special moves” to make MatsuJun learn. Watch it and see how much more effort is put to make this okonomiyaki.

• 1. Flip the bowl


• 2. Shrimp pocket


• 3. Breaking the egg


• 4. Flying mayonaise!

Don’t they seem a little…flamboyant? Haha.

You have to watch the exchange of conversation between Jun and the Chef. They’re both such standout characters.

Took some time before MatsuJun was able to get things right. Especially with the egg trick. At some point of his frustration he calls out to his “MVP”. He We have TANAKA AD! He’s asked if he can do it and apparently…he can! Haha.

Looks like he can do the things that our very own MatsuJun find difficultly doing. MJ's face:

versus Tanaka AD’s “I just did it…no biggie”

A seemingly frustrated Jun suggests: Starting next week, can you do someone else’s location shoot? (I hope not. This is an amusing combi)

THE REAL TAKE!

Let's proceed Jun making it in the studio. We all know MatsuJun can do it. It’s just fun to see Mr. Perfect struggle before his glory to a seemingly effortless Tanaka AD. So the ARASHI members plus their guest get to try the okonomiyaki…

Hmm. Leader and Nino’s okonomiyaki sizes are little too different…Looks like MatsuJun has a favorite. Haha. Either way the okonomiyaki gets good reviews from them which brings us back to the Iron Man Challenge…

The final challenge is the HOP STEP JUMP where they pretty much do hop scotch on rocks. Ouch! They have to hop three times then jump as far as they can in the sand landing area. Points will be given depending on ranking… But so far:

…the first three didn’t even get to jump to the sand landing. Looks like the boys need to work out a little more though…their joke on Katsumura-san being dead in the Edo period at his age seems to backfire.

What about Aiba, Matsumoto and Katsumura-san?

Matsumoto true to Nino’s belief that he can do it was able to!Look at that victory jump!


Aiba was next and well, he made it til the landing pit.

Katsumura-san was last and before he even started he already apologized and say he’ll win. Did he? Watch the episode and find out! :-)

Overall Review

Overall, it was a pretty good episode. Definitely not a 10 but not a 5 either. It's between the 6-7 range for me. There's entertainment value but perhaps not enough excitement. I’ll stick to what I said earlier and say that while it was good there wasn’t so much of a highlight to it, if you know what I mean.