Television in Japan

[larabell]

BS and CS are satellite broadcast services (the former from NHK themselves), not cable. And seeing either in an apartment listing just means the building already has an antenna... you'd still need to sign up for the service and buy or rent the decoder -- and the programming isn't all that good.

Cable *is* prevalent here (at least it is in Tokyo) but every mini-fifedom seems to run their own operation and you usually only get one choice in any given area. Not all apartments are wired for cable, though -- even those that tout a BS or CS antenna. You should ask (sometimes it will mention "cable" in the apartment listing, sometimes not). If the building is not pre-wired, you're probably out of luck.

The fiber-based Internet providers (NTT, Usen) are starting to offer cable-TV over the fiber. My provider, Usen, offers the service but, as far as I can tell, offers NO Western channels (yet). I'm also a bit concerned about how my Internet speed would be affected if the kids were wathing Japanese cartoons in the next room over my fiber connection ;-).

For non-Japanese TV, your best bet is one of the newer digital satellite providers. If that's your medium of choice, be sure to get an apartment with a balcony that faces either to the South or to the West, since that's the direction where the satellites are (I guess DirecTV is kinda East of South so anything *except* dead-North will probably work). Because the various satellite providers use different antennas pointing in different directions, you won't find many apartments pre-wired. But at those frequencies, the antenna is really small and many people just clamp them onto the balcony railing.

[beatnik]

I'm part of the kill your tv movement, but seriously, I enjoyed japanese tv. even though it was hard to understand. the evening soap operas are very interesting and funny. There's one that blends folklore with a modern twist. Kinda like Kojack./X-files but lower budget.

[larabell]

A friend of mine who is nearly 100% fluent told me once that he practiced Japanese watching the "Jidai Drama" (period drama -- mostly samurai, since that's pretty much the only "period" Japan had). And *some* (but far from all) of the Japanese TV shows are funny. There was a contest show I saw where people would just take whatever material they could find and do some original skit. Some of them can be found on the English Youtube the next day... that's how funny they were. And I like to watch Kohaku every New Years.

For the most part, however, I find Japanese TV a wasteland.

[synthia]

Soaps seem to be a pretty standard teaching tool. Everyone I know who has become fluent in Spanish confesses to long hours watching telenovellas. Apparently once you get into them, you really concentrate.