Uchi won't ask Minori out, despite the fact that the two housemates have been flirting for weeks. So Minori takes the plunge ... and scrawls the word "coward" in tomato sauce over an omelette.
You'd think that would drive Uchi away, but it doesn't. The two start dating.
This moment, known as the "omurice incident", is one of Japanese reality TV show Terrace House's most dramatic moments — a moment that's considered "iconic" in the show's canon, perhaps only overshadowed by an incident involving the unauthorised cooking of expensive meats that threatened to tear this new couple apart just a few weeks later.
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It's the kind of hijinx that led Vulture writer Bethy Squires to describe the series as "one of the least eventful shows on television".
The original Terrace House ran on Japanese network Fuji Television in 2012-2014, before Netflix picked it up and brought it to a global audience, winning fans in the New York Times and the New Yorker and a slew of international viewers who obsessively talk about the show on Reddit, Twitter, and in their own dedicated podcasts.
And although filming of the latest season of the show — Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 — has been shut down due to COVID-19, there are still hundreds of episodes of this oddly compelling show available to watch during lock down.
So what is Terrace House?
This show has a simple premise: six strangers — three women and three men — must share a house.
The housemates are usually in their twenties, and while their occupations and hobbies may vary (the current season features a professional wrestler, a drag-racer and a parkour enthusiast), many moonlight as models.
No — this is not Big Brother; there are no challenges, no eliminations, housemates simply go about their daily lives and off to work and study (which we sometimes witness snippets of).
Housemates watch themselves on TV as episodes come out, and they can leave the house (and therefore the show) whenever they want, only to be replaced by another person of the same gender.
Six commentators — including actress Yukiko Ehara (also known as You) and comedian Ryota Yamasato (Yama-chan) — review and critique the housemate's interactions at regular intervals, giving some structure to the conversations, flirtations and arguments that occur in the house.
Terrace House is in many ways a slow-TV dating show, but the idea of bettering one's self — whether through falling in love or achieving career goals — is another key part of the series.
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Why are people watching this?
For the uninitiated, it can be hard to grasp why viewers are drawn to the series. Where, you ask, is the drama!?
"The hallmark of American reality TV is artificially created negative drama and hostility," says Matt Alt, the Tokyo-based American co-founder of media production company AltJapan.
"But Terrace House is a situation where the producers are artificially creating positive or neutral drama … The show is very quotidian; it turns the real drama of our daily lives into entertainment," Alt says.
Hiroko Yoda, writer, editor and translator, and the other founder of AltJapan, points out that these everyday tensions unfurl in the show "in a clean way — everyone is wearing fashionable clothing and makeup, and they're all in a beautiful house".
Alt, who has written the forthcoming book Pure Invention: How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World, links the popularity of Terrace House to a larger trend in pop culture that he says began with Japan's 1990 recession and has since spread as a result of the 2010s Great Recession.
He says pop culture started "turning inwards" and towards "self-soothing" activities and products at that point — examples include Bon Appetit's viral videos reconstructing childhood foods, the colouring books for adults trend, and our embrace of superheroes and Marvel movies.
Okay, but why right now?
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The show's everyday, house-bound predictability is particularly appealing to fans across the world in lockdown.
"So much of reality TV is supposed to be reflecting reality — and what's more real than a bunch of people in a house right now?" says Australian podcaster and writer Stephanie Van Schilt, a Terrace House superfan.
"I think it's good to watch Terrace House right now because it helps you forget stress, because it feels like normal life when you watch the show," says Kaede, a 26-year-old English teacher from Toyama, a city two hours away from Tokyo.
American writer Bryan Washington wrote in the New Yorker about loving Terrace House more than ever during lockdown: "The show's amiability, the casual jaunts of its housemates, and its overarching emphasis on communion take on a peculiar new dimension".
But why would I want to relive my sharehouse days?
"The casting is really good … even when you don't like someone in the house, they tend to have a redemption arc, there are no real villains like in other reality TV shows," Van Schilt says.
The housemates do have minor disagreements — whether that's over washing dishes or who's dating who — but they play out in a way that is rare for most reality TV.
"A lot of things are acknowledged in the show and they go through conflicts together rather than letting it boil over," Van Schilt says.
Alt says: "Especially in this day and age where we're so rent by political differences and it seems like there's no way to agree with other people, shows like Terrace House are very appealing."
Alongside minor events and disagreements there's also small-scale — yet touching — personal development for the housemates, often facilitated through genuine friendships between the cast.
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In the current season, Ruka, a handsome young housemate who lacked direction (at one point he said his aim in life was to literally become a superhero), made a laughably terrible pasta dish for the house.
By the time Ruka left the house he may not have figured himself out, but under the tutelage of Italian manga artist Peppe he was able to successfully cook a delicious home-made pasta meal. Bless you, Ruka.
Do we really need SIX commentators?
The sheer number of commentators can seem like overkill at first, but you soon become fond of the panel of Japanese celebrities — although their judgement of the cast's behaviour can sometimes cause consternation for housemates during the run of the show.
Alt and Yoda say commentators are a key feature of most Japanese variety TV shows.
"You couldn't have the show with them, they represent your [the viewers] opinions," says Yoda.
"Without them you're basically watching captured security-cam footage," Alt says.
Can Terrace House tell us something 'real' about Japan and Japanese culture?
When Yoda first watched the show she was struck by how forced the interactions on screen seemed, as well as just how unusual the sharehouse setup was in a country where most young people either live with their parents, alone or in small apartments.
But Alt says the atmosphere of the current season, set in Tokyo, mirrors the feel of the city.
"Tokyo to me is a mixture of stimulating and soothing; it's stimulating with the neon lights and all sorts of fun restaurants and clubs … but people aren't in each other's faces as they are in the West," Alt says.
While the show is just as heteronormative as many non-Japanese dating shows, the housemates' approach to courting sets Terrace House far apart from The Bachelor franchise.
Romance in Terrace House — like everything that unfolds in the show — is slow and tentative.
It takes many weeks and many conversations — without any physical contact — for couples to decide to date, and then sometimes all those conversations lead to nothing (see: Kenny and Risako).
Kaede and Yoda both say this feels accurate to Japanese dating culture.
"Here in Japan, we don't hug, we bow," Yoda says.
"We were doing social distance before the pandemic, the social distance is far in Japanese culture."
Terrace House is now streaming on Netflix.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA1LTAyL25ldGZsaXgtdGVycmFjZS1ob3VzZS1qYXBhbmVzZS1yZWFsaXR5LXR2LXN0cmVhbWluZy8xMjIwNTgwMtIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjIwNTgwMg?oc=5
2020-05-02 01:28:07Z
CAIiEK2xInjkHUcvuaYFzl8gfBQqFggEKg4IACoGCAow3vI9MPeaCDDc2g4
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