Denpa Shonen cut

[Aaron Gerow]

Nihon TV has decided to cancel the TV show Denpa Shonen, "infamous" for 
its stunts such as singing a critical song in front of Democratic Party 
leader Hatoyama Yukio. The show, which began in 1992, enjoyed extremely 
high rating for many years and was a leader in Japanese TV's version of 
"reality" when it sent off minor tarento to do immense tasks like 
hitchhike from Chile to Alaska. It has continually gotten into trouble, 
however, for doing stunts which violated the sense of propriety of some 
observers, and for "faking" some of its "real" stunts. Given some of its 
recent scandals, there is the impression the show finally did too much 
and was cancelled, but the fact is it has severely slumped in the ratings 
this year.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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