Today Shinsuke Shimada, a comedian legend in Japan, was fired/resigned from his duties as a result of a Yakuza scandal. The scandal? He had email contact with a known Yakuza member … that’s it. Talking to Yakuza isn’t a crime in Japan and there was no attempted crimes in the email just the Japanese cultural crime of guilt by association. Much like how Noriko Sakai was excommunicated from TV for admitting doing speed in the past (a drug the Japanese government used to give its citizens to improve their factory output) Shimada has been pushed out of the limelight. This might seem strange to foreigners after all Frank Sinatra became legend even though he was a known mob associate but in Japan there is a taboo in talking to the Yakuza, a crime that will get you thrown off TV.
Shinsuke Shimada rose through the ranks of the Osaka comedy scene to become the go to host for Japanese TV. At one time he was hosting eight different quiz or variety shows, in addition to even being an anchor for the Asahi’s TV Sunday morning news program. No stranger to controversy once during a 2009 live taping of “All Star Kanshasai” a five hour live TV show he attacked a comedy group for not showing enough respect for the show. Even further back Shimada assaulted a young co-worker who “went up to him and introduced herself, saying that when she was in high school in Tokyo she was a big manzai (stand-up comedy) fan.” For that crime he dragged her into a room and assaulted her. The justification for the attack? ” the woman, who … grew up overseas, didn’t seem to know how to talk “ to her superiors, her senpai. Shimada is notorious for following a strict hierarchy of deference to superiors that seems to evolve in any Japanese group or sub-culture, something the younger Japanese are following less and less. Which is how he justified the attack on the young women saying, “he couldn’t control himself and felt he had to teach her a lesson.”
With his exit from the Japanese TV the networks are scrambling to fill the void of dozens of hours of his shows that have already been taped. It is unknown if they will be broadcast now that Shimada has been forced out in disgrace. But there is still hope and a chance for redemption for Shimada. A few years ago famous TV anchor Mona Yamamoto was caught in a love hotel having an affair with Goshi Hosono, an executive of the Democratic Party of Japan that was supposedly a happily married man. Mona too was excommunicated from TV for her transgressions but after sometime off air she was allowed back into the fold. However, shortly after making a comeback she was caught again in a love hotel this time with Tomohiro Nioka a married baseball player.
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August 24, 2011 at 1:55 pm
I have to say it because I think many of us are thinking it: WHO GIVES A FUCK? Not about the post itself, but about Japanese TV? It is simply awful. Mexico, France, Germany, Thailand, Korea, China, America, England, Poland….even the Armed forces network, I have seen them all and NONE of them, not ONE can compare with the awfulness that is Japanese television. I hope the whole damn system implodes.
August 24, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Here’s something that make it more relevant for you. The Yakuza member Shimada has been excommunicated for talking to? Jiro Watanabe (渡辺二郎) one of the first boxing World Super Flyweight Champions.
August 24, 2011 at 3:08 pm
My boxing coach at Ihara is totally hooked up with the Yazzies and is a former light heavy champion. Old news. VIVA JAPANESE BOXING, FUCK JAPANESE TV. Keep the bad news coming Yosomono…it pumps me up.
August 25, 2011 at 8:11 am
Ah AFN still a torturer to troops here in Okinawa.
but true it is still better than Japanese TV in Tokyo and here in Kadena Airbase.
*shudders* the horrors of having to watch shitty variety shows or finding out what celebrities like to eat while being stuck at my ex GF home
August 28, 2011 at 8:28 am
I have known AFN for 30 years and it’s been an evil dirty whore the entire time. I was an army brat, and then I was in the Marines. Oh god do I know and loath AFN, however I would rather watch nothing but AFN for the rest of my life with a Perrier bottle lodged in my rectum rather than deal with a week of Japanese programming. Sheer torture.
August 25, 2011 at 1:11 pm
I was just thinking “I don´t understand why anyone would give a fuck about his guy” when I read your commnet and made me laugh. I read and saw some clips of his work and his notorious douchness and is in fact a very irritating person (Like Gab X for instance)…I don´t understand why he became so famous nor why there are so many shocked and annoyed by his forced retirement. As it goes for me I think it is rightly done, not for the yakuza bizz but because it should have happen years ago.
August 27, 2011 at 1:28 am
Just thinking that his supposed crime of “having email contact with a known Yakuza member” wasn’t really a crime at all. More like, thats the information the police is allowing out, (because there is probably more) and booking him on this charge sends a message to others who also are in email contact with a known Yakuza member.
Win win.
August 28, 2011 at 8:34 am
I thought something similar. This is a cover story of some kind.
August 28, 2011 at 11:33 am
Japanese comedians are anti-funny. When i watch them they erase the memories of western stand up comedians from my brain. I don’t think anyone in japan has told a joke in the last 60 years its just that they are so conformist they will laugh at anything they’re told is a joke.