Since my order of the Blu-Ray collection of Seasons 1 and 2 of a particular game show is finally getting ready to ship, I thought I would talk about it a little bit. It includes a bit of information on a famous film studio lot here in Japan.
Over in the top left corner of Yokohama (south-west of Tokyo) is the Aoba Ward. Located here is a place called Midoriyama Studio City. Midoriyama Studios is a television studio owned by TBS Holdings (Tokyo Broadcasting System). It contains a massive set lot, golf range, filming and photography studios, makeup/dressing rooms, and production/set piece material storage. The original studio was purchased by the Tokyo Broadcasting System with the intention to move there and use it as their headquarters. That didn't pan out, mainly because it was too far away for many performers and workers. Instead TBS made it a production studio.
Many popular TV shows, dramas, game shows, commercials, and movies have been filmed here. Many of these are Japan-only, but some streaming series may be familiar to people elsewhere in the world, such as the Netflix series Alice in Borderland. It is also the location where the obstacle course show SASUKE is filmed (now known as Ninja Warrior. American Ninja Warrior also used this set for the first three seasons, I believe).
It's an interesting place, but unfortunately one that is not open to the public, for somewhat obvious reasons.
This is basically as much as I am able to see. The property is fenced off and is surrounded by trees in most places.
Now, why would I want to see (part of) what is normally an empty dirt lot and some nondescript buildings? Well, Midoriyama Studios is where a certain famous game show was filmed. From 1986 to 1990, the original Takeshi's Castle was filmed at Midoriyama Studios.
Starring Japanese comedian and actor Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano), the game show involved people trying to fight their way through insane challenges in order to reach Takeshi in his castle. Although you may not have heard of this game show, you have probably experienced its influence in shows like Wipeout, Ninja Warrior, Fear Factor, Squid Game, and video games like Fall Guys.
For others, like myself, you likely encountered it airing on SpikeTV between 2003 and 2007 as Paul Abeyta, Peter Kaikko, and Larry Strawther took the footage of the game show and made a somewhat raunchy English comedy dub called MXC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge.
This is what I grew up with during my teenaged years. I absolutely love this show. While the original game show is certainly a classic, the liberties that they took in transforming it into somehow more of a comedy series is amazing.
I'm not sure what the opinion of it is from the perspective of Japanese people, but I loved it. I also think it still holds up, which is why I immediately put in an order for the Blu-Ray release of Seasons 1 and 2 (and half of 3) that was announced a few months ago by Discotek media. I will be sure to grab the second set as well, should it happen.
So even though I can only see a tiny part of the filming studio, it was still something I wanted to see, both for the cultural significance of Takeshi's Castle and the fond memories of MXC.
