Odoru record

[Aaron Gerow]

It was announced that Bayside Shakedown 2 (Odoru daisosasen 2: Reinbo 
Burijji o fusaseyo!) has become the largest grossing live action Japanese 
film in the domestic market, garnering 11.1 billion yen and surpassing 
Nankyoku monogatari (from 1983). The second film in the series, itself 
based on a Fuji TV show, enjoyed probably the largest media campaign for 
a Japanese movie ever, as the Fuji-Sankei conglomerate pulled out all 
stops to promote the film. (It seemed to me like every time I turned on 
Fuji, one of the cast members was appearing on one show or another.) 

Whether or not the film is any good is another matter. I still haven't 
seen it, but found the TV show and the first film enjoyable but extremely 
conventional and cliched. My students tend laugh at the wrong places when 
I show the first film in class, finding it fun but overwrought.

Any comments on the film or on the increasing dominance of TV capital in 
the Japanese film industry?

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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