Monday 10 May 2010

Currently watching: Nep League

When I say "currently watching", I mean "when I can find it".

This quiz show completes the triumvirate of Japanese shows you can enjoy even if you don't really understand the language, alongside Quiz Hexagon II and Tokyo Friend Park II. Nep League is a quiz show mostly based around general knowledge or knowledge of Japanese (or English, on occasion) and each stage demonstrates quite a strong video game influence, with swooshing graphics when you're correct and smoke and alarms to signify a wrong answer.

The example illustrated below is a nice example of the most interesting stage. An answer has five elements – be it five hiragana, katakana, kanji or (in this case) letters. Without conferring, each player writes down the element that corresponds to their position. If they get it right, the word is successfully pronounced by the voice-overed question master. If they get it wrong, the question master just says whatever they wrote as best they can, with sometimes hilarious consequences.



The rest of the stages are all enjoyable and offer so many flashing lights and pretty pictures that non-Japanese speakers can easily enjoy it without following the banter or understanding every last nuance.

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