With Shibuhara Girls, Reality TV comes to Japan. (With a little help from MTV.)
Describes the Wall Street Journal, Shibuhara Girls is
a show following four career-climbing young women as they aspire to reach the summit of Japan’s entertainment industry, or perhaps more simply, fame. The name “Shibuhara,” an MTV Japan concoction, combines the names of Tokyo’s conjoined fashion neighborhoods Shibuya and Harajuku.
In other words, think The City: Tokyo edition, except that the women are already minor celebrities. Reports Tokohive,
Two of the four girls are models: Sun Wei is of Chinese-descent, and Akimoto Kozue is the daughter of an ex-Yokozuna (the highest rank in sumo), Chiyonofuji (now the head coach of Kokonoe stable).The remaining two are singers – one is about to debut (Ishikawa Marie), while the other has been in the industry for four years (Miyawaki Shion).
Better still, they’ve abandoned the most forced element of most American reality shows: the cast doesn’t have to pretend to be friends and inexplicably hang out constantly. Thus, the emphasis would seem to be less on manufactured drama than on the women’s professional lives. As of now, the show’s slated to run in Asian markets including Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Korea, and the Philippines; no word on whether we’ll be able to watch it here, but given our severe shortage of reality TV, here’s hoping.
MTV’s ‘Shibuhara Girls’: Japan’s First Bite Of Reality TV [Wall Street Journal]
More Details Revealed For “SHIBUHARA GIRLS” [Tokohive]