Watashi o Daigaku ni Tsurette tte | Visual Kei-1 GP
Watashi o Daigaku ni Tsurete tteI love this segment, but put it up here especially because it really was a perfect example of the Gakkou e Ikou "life changing" segments. The title means something like "Take Me to College", and the basic object was to help three male students get into the schools of their dreams. To get into university in Japan, you have to take a very difficult entrance exam. If you're one of the top students, you get in. If not, then you either A) don't go to college, B) go to a less academic college, or C) wait and try again next year. Gakkou e Ikou found three young men who had taken time off after high school, but decided to head to college. A private tutor was hired for the three of them, a small house was rented, and they were given a practice exam every week or two. All of their initial scores put them in about the 30th percentile for the school, and they were aiming to get themselves in the 65th percentile by the end of their studying. So they had to study their butts off for each test and aim just a little bit higher. The catch? All three guys also had very serious girlfriends. They were not allowed to leave their dorm, or contact their girlfriends in any way. The only way to see their girlfriends was to make their goal for each practice exam... at which point they were allowed to visit for five minutes through a glass window. Harsh. The segment was spearheaded by the papa and mama of V6, Sakamoto-kun and Nagano-kun, with the three guys: Take, Gori, and Tei-chan. On the day of the first practice exam, the three girlfriends gathered outside of the dorm. Unfortunately, none of the guys passed. Nagano-kun went outside to break the bad news. Two of the girls started crying, but to everyone's surprise, Take's girlfriend, Subaru, turned towards the dorm and started screaming. She informed the guys that they made their girlfriends cry, and berated them for not being man enough to pass. This really changed the dynamic of the segment. On the next practice exam, all of the guys failed for a second time. But this time, Nagano-kun was "kind" enough to bring a bullhorn so that the girls could yell at their men without ruining their voices. Meanwhile, Sakamoto-kun sat with the guys as they all winced at the screams from outside. By the end of the segment, Tei-chan had passed several times, Gori had passed a couple times as well, but everyone's favorite Take only passed once. He was performing better than the other two, but as he was trying to get into a tougher school, he was scoring lower in percentages. On the plus side for us, we all got to hear wonderful clips of Subaru screaming her head off at Take. She calculated the exact number of hours that he spent studying, she told him that he was perverted and stupid, and informed him that he was the lowest level of man. Nagano-kun even "gifted" him with a clock, which featured Subaru's screaming voice as a "pleasant" alarm. (Towards the end of the segment, Subaru yelled at V6, for making the alarm, and Take, for saying he didn't need it. Nagano-kun nodded quickly and whispered, "He said that." Sakamoto-kun elbowed and shushed him, but Nagano-kun hissed back, "It was on air!" S-still...) It couldn't last forever, of course. One day, Take finally snapped. He yelled back at Subaru, telling her to go home. After chucking the bullhorn at Nagano-kun, Subaru left in tears. Meanwhile, Take was also in tears and informed everyone that he wanted to leave the dorm and go home. This was the part when you were really glad that Sakamoto-kun and Nagano-kun were there. Sakamoto-kun was a good papa, firmly refusing to let him give up. Sakamoto-kun and the tutor tried everything to convince Take to stay, but nothing was really working until Nagano-kun suddenly dragged Take to his feet and took him into a private room. Nagano-kun went into perfect mama mode, quietly talking to Take and convincing him that if he gave up, he would regret it in the long run. Take finally decided that if he didn't pass the next practice test, he would leave. Sakamoto-kun was somewhat unhappy with the compromise, but agreed. Luckily for everyone, Take passed. Meanwhile, Nagano-kun spoke to Subaru and discovered that she didn't enjoy yelling at Take either. But Subaru said that if she was too kind to Take, he wouldn't push himself and would fail. At the end of the segment, all of the guys took their entrance exams. Tei-chan failed his top two, but got on the waiting list at university number 3. Gori also failed the top two, but made it into his third university. Take was the big question. He only had two universities he wanted to apply to... and he failed both. Both Take and Subaru began crying, leaving Sakamoto-kun and Nagano-kun to comfort them. Only... Take took THREE entrance exams. The tutor convinced him last minute to apply to a third school. And Take made it~! So everyone was off and everyone was happy, except for Sakamoto-kun since no one would comfort him in his tears of joy. "What about MY feelings~!?" ^_^ 
Visual Kei-1 GPI really do like Japanese visual rock. I honestly do. That being said, Visual Kei-1 GP made me want to wet myself, it was so funny. The title comes from combining "Visual Kei" (meaning "visual rock") and the K-1 Grand Prix (for the K-1 kickboxing league). In a nutshell, it was a battle between amature Visual Kei bands. The winner was declared champion, and went on to compete against the challenger in the next round. The loser had all of their make-up taken off, often revealing really geeky guys underneath. The bands were judged on four main things: the lead singer's opening MC duties, the call & response with the audience, the actual performance, and the reaction of the fans. The segment was always hosted by Sakamoto-kun and Nagano-kun, perhaps not a good idea as their physical representation of Visual Kei tended to be spinning wildly in circles. (although now that i think about it...) Later on, Doi-san, who worked at the Visual magazine Vicious (left photo) came on to help judge the tournament. (I know, Doi-san, that how I often felt, too.) At this point I'll mention that these are amature Visual Kei bands... a.k.a. pretty darned crappy ones. The performances were all outlandishly bad, made amusing by their devoted female fans who would scream for them as they performed. The grand champion, winning every single Visual K-1 GP segment, was Adam. Their music was somewhat decent, even sampling T.M.Revolution. That's always a plus to me... But their lead singer, Star Action Momota, was absolutely nuts. His persona was basically that of a "suave Italian player", who would drive his fangirls insane with his "sexy" dances and hip thrusts. Only, he wasn't sexy at all. He was just ridiculous. The photo at the top right is Star doing his "Sexy Bull" dance. He also had the "Sexy Spider" and the "Sexy Life Saver". It was that bad. The worst part was that Adam honestly WAS leagues better than their competition. They competed against techno themed bands, samurai bands, S&M bands, bands that dressed like koalas, bands that sang riddles, bands that sang nothing, and even a band which worshipped Japanese comedian Tamori. There was also one band which featured the WORST example of stage diving, EVER. The lead singer launched himself off stage, only to find that his fangirls weren't expecting it. He hit the ground, but then got up and started dizzily wandering off. His fans ignored him as he began spinning in circles, eventually crashing into a dazed heap somewhere near the Gakkou e Ikou staff. Doi-san always looked extremely pained to declare Adam as champion yet again, but he really didn't have much choice. ^_^ Back | TV Index |