Comments on: We will not interrupt this program

By: dorkly chair of the institute for space politics

dorkly chair of the institute for space politics — Sun, 22 May 2011 08:58:11 +0000

Yes, they did break for the earthquake. Set back the series finale for Keroro by a bit.

By: Kina

Kina — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:18:37 +0000

Did they interrupt programming for the most recent earthquakes, do you think? It’s the biggest news in Japan in 15 years.

By: Tammy

Tammy — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:35:29 +0000

Good site and post, I recently started watch tv episodes here and just stream them straight to my TV in the living room.

By: Yoneda

Yoneda — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:17:09 +0000

She sang the Gunbuster Opening Theme “Active Heart”. ;_;

Good memories. Still like it a lot. ;_;

Now I really am a bit sorry for her.
I hope her husband talked her into it and the public forgives her a bit for being led astray.

By: Yoneda

Yoneda — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:13:43 +0000

Don’t miss the list of consequences either. I’m almost sorry for her:

“The drug scandal can potentially cost Sakai billions of yen in canceled contracts and other endeavors she was involved in prior.[21] On August 6, 2009, car manufacturer Toyota reportedly stopped showing a commercial, featuring Sakai, on its web site.[22] Sakai’s clothing line “PP rikorino”, consisting of over 150 items were pulled from stores throughout Japan.[21]

During the first week of the scandal, Apple Inc’s iTunes Store rated Sakai’s 1995 song Aoi Usagi the number one downloaded song. The rating is based on an eleven-day period.[23] Other Sakai songs among the top 100 downloads include Kagami no Doresu (17th) and Sekaiju no Dare Yori Kitto (18th). On August 9, 2009, Victor Entertainment, the distributor of Sakai’s works, withdrew Sakai’s CDs from stores, and suspended downloads of her songs.[24] On-line stores such as Amazon Japan still sell Sakai’s CDs and DVDs, despite increasing the selling prices as a result of Victor’s move.

Immediately after the indictment announcement, Sun Music, the talent agency who has represented Sakai since 1986, suspended the contract. Sun Music president Masahisa Aizawa said, “We apologize from the bottom of our hearts for the alleged misdeeds of Ms. Sakai.”[25] Sun Music removed Sakai’s official web site from its web server.”

By: Yoneda

Yoneda — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:10:56 +0000

“Accompanied by her attorney, she apologized to the public during a press conference. “My weakness caused me to give in to illegal drugs and caused grief to many people. I pledge to repent and atone for this crime for the rest of my life,” she said. Sakai will be checked into a hospital to overcome her drug habit, and asked for restraint from the media during her recovery.”

Totally unimagineable in the US or Europe, a celebrity APOLOGIZING TO THE PUBLIC for doing drugs!! And she has to stop doing media appearances until she has “overcome her drug habit”, too!

Good to hear that Japan still plays in another league than your usual first world countries.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:00:30 +0000

I agree with Brandon. A former pop idol being busted for amphetamines (amphetamines!) is a non-issue for most(?) non-Japanese in Japan. I’d pull an Elvis on my TV if they interrupted my favourite show with Norippi coverage.

By: brandon

brandon — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:44:49 +0000

only in japan would anyone consider pre-empting programming because a *celebrity did drugs.*

By: keving

keving — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:38:10 +0000

Japan Wikipedia is up on that, listing the times when they pre-empted programming in the typical Japan Wikipedia exhaustive fashion.

For the most part TVT just prefers to wait until regularly-scheduled news shows when big events happen. Usually even when it did pre-empt programming, it would often be scheduled during time periods when they would normally be showing reruns of something else anyway.

By: Andrew Vestal

Andrew Vestal — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:58:05 +0000

I learned about this while I was in Japan and it’s totally lulz.

Is there a list anywhere of the times TV Tokyo /has/ broken into programming? I am mightily curious.