Orgasm Wars and Other Reasons Japanese Television Wins

Japan is ahead of the rest of the world in several important areas. The food, obviously. The trains. And game shows—which look back at Western television with something approaching genuine pity.

While the rest of us sit through talent competitions and celebrity quiz formats, Japan produces programming like Poko x Tate, in which Takuya, owner of a gay bar, bets that he can bring straight porn star Sawai Ryo to climax—even as Ryo attempts to resist mentally. This is broadcast entertainment. This was filmed, edited, and aired in front of an audience. Someone approved the concept. Someone wrote it up as a pitch.

I genuinely don’t know who to root for. The premise is so perfectly committed to its own absurdity that picking sides misses the point. What I do know is that no prime-time network anywhere in the Western world would greenlight something this fully realized in its strangeness—and that feels like a real cultural failure on our part.