Hello~
Completed subtitling an episode of the show Shabekuri 007 featuring the actor Ken Watanabe. Ken Watanabe is the Japanese actor that has starred in such Hollywood block busters such as 'Last Samurai', 'Batman Begins', Inception', and 'Letters of Iwo Jima'. Even if you don't know his name I'm sure you've seen one of these movies and will recognise his face. I doubt this video would be as popular as some of the others that I've subtitled because he's not an idol or pretty boy but it still definitely deserves a watch.
He's a very friendly and cool seeming mature man. Anyway here it ......oh hold on. I think I should briefly have an introduction of the members of this show first.
MEMBERS OF SHABEKURI 007
This show is basically the template of Arashi ni Shiyagare. I heard somewhere that it's because the staff working on both shows are the same. Even the set looks the same, and the opening movie (I've cut it though) and the theme songs are spy/theif etc related (Arashi: Theme song off Lupin the 3rd, Shabekuri: James Bond). They also aren't told who the guests are before the show.......
Anyway, unlike Arashi these old dudes are all fairly experienced comedians so will start fooling around at whatever chance they get, or create for themselves. The 7 hosts are actually three different comedy groups so I'll introduce them like that as it's briefly touched in the video too.
CREAM STEW くりぃ～むしちゅ～: Consists of
Arita Teppei and the emcee for the show,
Ueda Shinya. They started out as a manzai duo but as they gained popularity started to host their own show like this one. Ueda Shinya is the more successful one (he emcees other shows separate with his partner) and is well known for his excess knowledge about random facts. In my opinion Arita is quite underrated among his peers for some reason but I quite like him a lot. It seems Ken Watanabe (and many other guests on this show) agree with me.
(From left to right) Ueda Shinya and Arita Teppei
NEPTUNE ネプチューン: This is a 3 man group and has been around the longest out of the show members. It consists of
Nagura Jun as the straight man and
Horiuchi Ken as a crazy maniac.
Harada Taizo is somewhere in between, but mostly fools around. Often you'll see Horiuchi Ken doing some random jokes that don't make sense. Nagura Jun thought to look like a Thai person, mainly because of his complexion, and that's a running joke you'll see often on this and episode that I'll sub.
(From left to right) Harada Tazio, Nagura Jun and Horiuchi Ken
TUTORIAL チュートリアル: Consisting of
Tokui Yoshimi and
Fukuda Mitsunori are the most junior of the bunch. They were also a popular manzai group but now mainly just appear on variety shows. Tokui is known as the pretty boy of Japanese comedy and has been ranked no.1 in the best looking comedian awards so many times that he entered the hall of fame and is unable to appear in the competition anymore. He's also well known for being perverted and having a great interest in eros. Fukuda on the other hand is quite ordinary, and you barely hear anything from him in a show unless if he's asked a question, or the topic at hand is about money.
(From left to right) Tokui Yoshimi and Fukuda Mitsunori (before he got sick)
So~~ that there are the members. Now to the video!
Get from Mediafire [253 MB]
TRANSLATION NOTES
ANTONIO INOKI
Antonio Inoki was/is the most famous pro-wrestler in Japan. He was the top star of the sport when it's popularity was at its height in the 70's and 80's, and still is a very well known figure in Japan. He's also known for his unusually large chin and peculiar way of talking (probably because of his large chin), and is often imitated and parodied by comedians. He/ like many other martial artists in Japan believe that you need 'kiai' (kinda like energy) to live positively, and is famous for smacking people in the face to inject power/energy into them.
Fighting Muhammed Ali
IMPORTANCE OF NAMES IN JAPANESE
Names are treated with much more importance/care in Japan then most other countries. For people that are senior to you or at a higher standing, it is expected that you put -san (Mr./ Ms/Mrs) at the end of that person's surname. If the person is really important, such as the master of a servant or you favourite singer etc you will put -sama (Master) on the end. The act of not adding these honourifics on the names, is called 'Yobisute'
(呼び捨て). So it would have been considered a lack of respect for Ueda to call Ken Watanabe just 'Watanabe', or even worse 'Nabe'.
JAPANESE NAME ORDER
The name order in Japanese is the opposite to English, so surname first, followed by given name. Generally in this blog I write the names in the Japanese format (which may be inconvenient for you guys...sorry), but I kind of got lost as to what I should do with Ken Watanabe and so have mixed it up at places, but generally have written it the English way, since this difference was is referred to in the video.
CONTE YAMAGUCHI AND TAKEDA
Are just another comedy group. They worked as assistants of Ken Watanabe with Ueda Shinya for a film shoot.
NHK HISTORICAL 'TAIGA' DRAMA
The TV station, 'NHK', always has a historical drama called 'Taiga Drama' broadcasted. Typically each season goes for 50 episodes and brings in a fairly large viewing audience. They talked about Harada Taizo starring in '
Ryoma-Den' (Legend of of Ryoma) which is the story about famous historical figure, Sakamoto Ryoma (played by singer Fukuyama Masaharu). They also mention the very popular one Ken Watanabe was in called '
Dokuganryu Masamune' (Masamune the One Eyed Dragon). This drama was about the famous warlord, Date Masamune, who was nicknamed the 'One Eyed Dragon' because...well he only had one eye and wore an eye patch.
The person on the right is Harada's role. He is Kondo Isami, the head of the Shinsen-gumi, which was like the police force of that era.
Ken-san at 28 years of age
YAMAZAKI FROM UNTOUCHABLE
Arita jokingly boasted having the number of 'Yamazaki from Untouchable' saved on his phone. This is another comedian called Yamzaki Hironari from the comedy duo 'Untouchable'. He's one of Arita's best friends.
LAST MUAY THAI
Like I said in the introductions to the member of the show, Nagura Jun is thought to look like a Thai person by his peers. So this was a joke based on that. Also, most of you would probably know this but I'll mention it just in case. Muay Thai is a martial art of Thailand, which mainly makes use of feet knees and elbows. Many people in Kickboxing tournaments have trained in this style.
SANADA-KUN
This is Sanada Hiroyuki, who costarred with Ken Watanabe on 'Last Samurai'. He has also starred in other Hollywood movies such as the bad guy 'Kenji' off Rush Hour 3.
SAUNAS
Public saunas and bathing houses are popular in Japan. There are also places that specialise in saunas and they usually have different types, such as by mixing various things in the steam that are good for you body. People that like saunas typically repeat the pattern of sweating in the sauna room first before going off to soak in a cold bath.
AKITAKEN
An Akita-ken or Akita-Inu is a breed of dog native to Japan (presumably in the Akita region). There is a famous true story of an Akita dog called Hachikou, who once upon a time was a pet of a university professor back in the 1920's~30's. Everyday after the professor finished work, Hachikou would come and meet his owner in front of the Shibuya Train station. One day however, the master died, never to return to the station. Regardless of this, Hachikou continued to come and wait for him everyday for the next 9 years, right up until his death. This story was discovered by one of the professor's students, who released an extremely successful book about it, and Hachikou became a symbol for faithfulness in Japan. There is now a bronze statue where Hachikou used to sit in front of the Shibuya train station, which is used as a popular meeting point for people.
An Akita inu
The real Hachikou
Statue in Shibuya
GIRI GIRI 007
I had trouble wondering what to write the translation for this as, but ended up just putting it up there as it is, although no one would understand it. GIRI GIRI 007 is a corner of the show where the members ask the guest (or another member) risky questions such as what celebrity they hate or what celebrity they had/would like to have sex with etc... Although they don't HAVE to answer it, generally the members will try to pressure them into giving an answer. Although it may be embarrasing for them, they always put a beeping noise over the name anyway so you can't hear what they say.....so it's not really that interesting in my opinion. But the people on TV make a lot of noise.
They write all the questions on a piece of paper(?) first and then
decide which ones are 'Giri Giri Yes' or 'Giri Giri No'
SHIGUSA
There was a part when they talk about Ken-san's favourite gestures of females. Well at least that's what I wrote. I don't know if it's correct as I haven't actually heard people giving this thin a name in English. The word that is used for this is Shigusa 仕草, and what I came up with after checking translations on the internet was 'behaviour' and 'gesture' and 'bearing'. However, I don't really feel that they're the right words but oh well. Japanese people like talking about Shigusa, and are often subtle things that you can can see as a result of some sort of behaviour or gesture. Aside from ones said in the video, popular ones include the neck of females when they push their hair back or when someone you like suddenly grabs your arm from behind.
Female legs like this are also another one.
ENTERING THE LABYRINTH
This isn't really important but I thought it would be interesting to mention. In the part where they try to figure out what Ken is called by is wife, I wrote Ueda saying "Oh this will probably be forever unknown". In Japanese he actually says that it will be 'Meikyuu iri' 迷宮入り, which means that "it will enter the labyrinth".
I just thought that this was a pretty interesting expression...
RICE BALLS
I'm sure many of you have eaten one or at least seen one somewhere. In Japanese they're called '
Onigiri' which literally means 'A grip'. This is because when you make it, you grip the rice to shape it into a ball (well actually a triangular shape is the standard). They also say you you 'grip an onigiri' rather than 'make an onigiri'.
They can have various things inside such as umeboshi (sour pickled plums), cooked salmon and other sorts of pickles. Rather than having it inside, you can also have it mixed with the rice so that it's distributed evenly around the onigiri, (like the one on the video)
Umeboshi
Aaaand that's that! Hope you enjoyed this post!
