午夜剧场

"Professor, there's an interesting message board on the internet. You should research this," a student told me about 18 years ago. At the time, I was teaching data analysis in the Department of Information and Society at a junior college. Japanese websites were finally starting to appear on the internet, but most of them just "existed" without being updated. As a social psychologist, I wasn't particularly interested.

However, the message board I was told about was strangely funny. TV program producers would frequently post and interact with submissions from viewers; while it was intimate, it was also like they were performing Ogiri (comedic improvisation). Eventually, they even started doing advice columns. It was truly a compelling read. This was my first encounter with "Suiyo Dodesho" (How Do You Like Wednesday?) (HTB). Known for featuring actor Yo Oizumi, this program was broadcast locally in Hokkaido as a regular series from 1996 to 2002. New episodes are still produced irregularly today, and reruns are broadcast all over Japan.

Thinking I might be able to research it, I printed out the message board several times using a roll paper printer and looked it over. Unfortunately, immediately after that, I was swept up in the struggle to convert the junior college into a four-year university. Research became the last thing on my mind, and I eventually moved to a different university.

It was three years ago that I finally watched the program properly. "So this is what the show was like," I thought. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, I became interested in how fans in Tohoku watched this show repeatedly. I joined the producers' paid SNS fan club, found them fascinating, and spent about two and a half years following them. Now, I have written a book. There were many surprises. The annual operating profit from DVD sales, program syndication, and other sources is comparable to that of a small local station. Its success is based on a close relationship with highly loyal fans called "Hanshi," which sets it apart from the TV business model of earning advertising revenue based on viewership ratings. Furthermore, many people recovered from crises after watching the program (resilience effect) and expressed their gratitude. When I sent a copy of the book to the graduate mentioned at the beginning, who is now a mother of three, she replied, "I was also saved by the program."

Fortunately, the book has been well-received, with reviews already appearing in local newspapers and weekly magazines, such as "A book that demonstrates the potential of television" (Shinano Mainichi, October 30), and I have also been interviewed. The fan base is actually quite broad. Since it is a program from the transition period to the internet, the book became both a media study and a community study. Even those who don't know the program well should find something new.

Sumire Hirota

午夜剧场 Press

272 pages, 1,600 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.