Ainori #333
Ainori is a popular reality show in Japan, aired on Fuji TV on Monday nights at 23:00.
In August 2005, I discovered that Ainori was not only popular in Japan, but also all over the world thanks to Bit Torrent technology. I decided to write a summary of each episode, and do a translation of the weekly photo captions from the official site. What do I get out of this? I get to improve my Japanese, I get more traffic to my blog, but above all, I get the satisfaction of knowing many non-Japanese speakers all over the world can appreciate a truly unique reality show. Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to post any comments or questions you may have.
Current participants
Ainori’s BT downloads available @ D-Addicts
Good News, people! It seems streaming videos of Ainori are still available on youtube.com.
Ainori #333
WARNING! THIS IS A SPOILER!
A lot of things happened this week. First, there is a new theme song called “My LOVE” by Ai Kawashima, who used to sing another of Ainori’s theme, “Ashita e no tobira”, as the lead singer of I WISH. The new theme didn’t impress me very much, but I guess I need to listen to it a bit more. Then of course, Tachi declared his love to Junko, in a somewhat, ahem, unusual manner. Uekki is now definitely in love with Chaki, who seems to be responsive, too.”
So Tachi tried to talk to Junko a first time, telling her how he was in love head over heels with one of the girls (her), and a very supportive Junko, who kept believing he was actually in love with Chaki, told him how she didn’t really have feelings for anyone, yet. As you can imagine, that came as a shock for Tachi. The next day, the group heard about the legend of Torun’s Katajinki gingerbread. According to the local legend, a long time ago a poor man and a princess fell madly in love with each other, but their relation wasn’t accepted due to the social gap between them. The man decided to make a gingerbread shaped like two hearts and two rings and gave it to the king, who was so impressed at the way the young man conveyed his feelings that he allowed the two to get married. So Tachi decided to bake his own Katajinki gingerbread, in order to declare his love to Junko, which he made with a “T” for Tachi and a “J” for Junko.
He then went to get the fateful plane tickets from the driver, and asked to talk to Junko once again. He was quite nervous at first, but then proceeded to explain how she grew on him since she had joined the group. From the moment he had noticed she had a “The North Face” backpack, how they could talk about the outdoors and skiing, etc. and then told her that his trip was coming to an end. At that moment, Junko still wasn’t realizing he was in the process of declaring his love to her, until he stood up, and screamed at the top of his lungs “People of Gdansk, I love Junko, I love Junko, I love Junko”.
“I loooooove Junko!”
He then started crying, apologizing profusely for that display of emotions, and gave her the WRONG ticket (he kept hers and gave her his, which he realized only later), and the gingerbread. Afterwards, when Junko was back in her room, she mentioned that she would have liked to get to know him better, and how she didn’t want to get involved with him on a whim. She even went as far as saying that she wondered what kind of face she should make when she turns him down, which is highly unusual. Usually, the producers don’t show such a clear intent from the participants right after a kokuhaku (love declaration in Japanese), so I think they manipulated the editing again to mislead us, the viewers. Personally, I think Junko is right, i.e. that Tachi rushed into this, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Well, well, it seems Uekki and Chaki are really getting along, and while they were cooking together, they were having so much fun they looked just like a couple in love. Uekki confessed to the staff that he loved her, and by the way she behaves I believe she also has feelings for him. It really looks like they would make a nice couple, and I hope Uekki will make a move soon.
“Ha, ha, ha”
On a completely different note, I hate Wentz’s new Japanese metrosexual haircut, which only echoes the quality of his stupid comments! Then again, what does a bald guy like me know about hair?
Next week we’ll hear Junko’s answer to Tachi, we’ll see Yankumi finally developing feelings for someone (I bet it’s Yokomi), and Sanchan will be inviting a girl for the first time in his life. Now THAT should be fun!(^o^)
Ainori #333 – Special treat for non-Japanese speakers 
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2006-10-17 at 11.31 pm
Woohoo my first post! I`ve been watching Ainori for a while and reading this site for a while so I decided to go ahead and post.
1. Yeah Wentz`s new hairstyle is a bit…”special.” I wanted to grab a pair of scissors and reach into the TV to cut that mess off!
2. Tachi seems to seriously lack control over his emotions. If I was Junko, I`d be scared at the way he yell out to the world how much he loved her then started crying. Despite his age, he seems kinda immature at times. Junko seems like the kind of person who wouldn`t fall in love quickly and she also seems to love traveling, so I don`t see her leaving the show anytime soon. Tachi was too forward and is going home solo.
3. Who the heck is Yokomi? Wait that`s the guy with the longer hair right? Geez I`d totally forgotten about him!
4. Chiaki and Uekki…I kinda felt something would happen with them. I definitely see Uekki giving the next kokuhaku.
2006-10-18 at 9.40 am
Great to be back to Ainori after a long 3-week hiatus!
Few things:
1) Don’t like the new theme song one bit. Chotokkyuu was great; nice and bouncy… the new one is too quiet and mellow
2) If Junko says no to Tachi (75% chance of a no, I think) she will instantly become my favourite female participant since I started watching. Don’t get me wrong, I like Tachi and I’m rooting for him. Actually what really endeared me to Junko is the way that she handled “kokuhaku-sareru”. She treated Tachi kindly, she smiled, she even gave him a tissue to cry into.. Unlike all the other girls on the show who have cried or just been horrible to a guy who kokuhaku’ed them…
3) Looks like Souri started a trend with standing up, public kokuhakus. Will San-chan ever be able to do that?!
4) Junko flew to Russia on March 24th, one day after Tachi jumped off the Stari Most. She didn’t join the cast for about 5 or 6 episodes after that. I wonder how long they keep contestants waiting around in the next country for someone to retire or kokuhaku…
5) San-chan is supposed to be the shy, retiring one, but Yokomii has only had about 2 lines in his entire run on the show. I hope that he’s the one that Yankumi likes, since otherwise he’ll continue being absolute deadweight on the show. That said, I still hoped to see some Yankumi/San-chan lovin’…
6) Not much point broadcasting in HDTV if the cameras are all lo-def 4:3 cameras.
7) Chaki/Uekki. Cool. Chaki’s a cutie and I wish she’d come back to Japan alone so I could scoop her up (well, she is a bit insane as we witnessed in the wake of the Tagami incident), but it is nice to see that pair getting closer..
9) I’m late for work so I’d better stop posting.
2006-10-18 at 9.56 am
Er.. for #4 above.. Don’t know where my brain was. What I meant was that she flew from Franfurt to *Krakau* in Croatia. Duh.
Now I’m even later for work.
2006-10-18 at 10.07 am
ハイビジョンです！
Yes it’s a shame that with the new hi-def aspect ratio all we get is more of the aforementioned Wentz haircut. Hopefully they shipped the new cameras to the next country.
Damn, Drew, did you get the date off of Junko’s ticket? Always the detective it seems. But was that her last name on the ticket? Aren’t they supposed to black that kind of thing out? There might be a few Ainori fans camping out on her front lawn when she returns. (Too bad I’m on the other side of the world or I would join them.)
I am looking forward to next week, seeing Yankumi and… um, that other guy?
2006-10-18 at 10.50 am
About this “declaring one’s love in front of everybody” business, there used to be a TV program called “Gakkou e ikou” (Let’s go to school) hosted by a Japanese pop-band called V6, in which they had high school students declare their love to someone in front of the whole school, from the school’s roof! I bet this might have had some sort of influence on Souri and Tachi.
>New York Jihen
The participants’ names are no secret. You may have noticed that I always give the full name of new participants, and if you click the link “Current Participants” at the beginning of my Ainori summaries, you will find a detailed profile for each of them, although in Japanese, mind you.
2006-10-18 at 11.12 am
This will be an interesting and weird kokuhaku for sure. Will Junko actually react differently and accept Tachi’s ticket home (most likely not!) Sanchan is an enigmatic character. He may be the shiest guy in all of Ainori, but to be such a pro in table tennis takes training and you need a competitor. I will like to know more about him.
As for Chaki, she really impressed me with her defense of Sanchan and I hope she chooses the right person. Uekki is someone that I’m not too sure of for some reason. I guess women’s intuition or something. But Chaki can defend herself.
Can’t wait for next week’s episode!!
2006-10-18 at 1.29 pm
NYJ: Junko’s ticket had the “Fare Calculation” saying “24MAR06FRA PO KRK” which means that her fare was based on a flight from Frankfurt to Krakau (Poland, not Croatia as I said before — I was amazingly stupid this morning) via Poland POT Airways on Mar 26 2006. My guess is that they got her to Frankfurt on JAL or something and then bought a regional ticket to get her to Krakau.
Well, they say each character’s full name at the beginning of each show so I guess it’s not a secret. Besides, her name is Junko Matsuda… It’s as if someone in the States was named Marie Brown — it’s a common enough name, both first and last, that it would be pretty tough to track someone down just by that.
Jenny: I’m curious about what Tachi pulled out of San-chan’s ear during the opening credits!
2006-10-18 at 3.06 pm
>Drew
My best guess is that it was earwax. It’s not so uncommon in Japan for people to clean each other’s ears…
2006-10-19 at 7.02 am
Thanks for clearing that up for me, Sylvain. (And, um… you know, all the synopses.) It’s going to be a long time before I start learning any of the Joyou-Jinmei Kanji. Right now I’m not ashamed to say that I own the JPLT level 4 Kanji. There aren’t many Japanese 3 year olds that know more kanji than me!
And about Junko waiting in Poland for the rest of the group: Pehaps Junko had to wait for so long because Hisayon told the staff she was leaving, but then decided to stay a little bit longer to clear things up with Chaki (she said something to that effect, didn’t she?)
Maybe it is just becuase a lot of stuff happened in a short amount of time, with Souri suddenly deciding to confess to Chaki.
But then again, the tickets were to Poland, not Bosnia-Herzegovina. Do new members ever join the group mid-country? Or do new members always come with a new country?
Jennychubachi:
That whole thing with Uekki looking down Junko’s shirt probably doesn’t help either. Plus the vegetables in Sanchan’s soup… I wonder what she sees in him?
2006-10-21 at 1.25 pm
I’m looking forward to Sanchan and Yankumi facetime next week! I agree, Yankumi is probably taking to Yokomi. That would make a cute combination, although, I don’t know if she is Yokomi’s type. I hope she is (that he is man enough for her – ha ha ha).
2006-10-22 at 8.02 am
Umi: From the preview, it was apparently that Yankumi was talking to Yokomii — he is the only character whose hair matches the hair in the preview. Still, I never really liked or disliked Yokomii, since he’s never actually said or done anything.
2006-10-23 at 11.40 pm
Yokomii & Yankumi couple might actually work because Yankumi is a loud, “tough” woman, and Yokomii seems like the shy, quiet & “girly” type of man so it’s like the opposites attracting. lol
2006-10-23 at 11.41 pm
Holy living crap she said yes!