About YoungTown
This is a translation of the Japanese wikipedia article about YoungTown Doyoubi.
YoungTown Doyoubi (doyoubi = Saturday) is a radio program being broadcasted at MBS Radio. The broadcasting time is every week on Saturday from 22:00 to 23:30（JST）.
This article is about the episodes of YoungTown with Akashiya Sanma as the host of the show (since 1992 up to now). You can read about the previous episodes on the official website of MBS YoungTown Doyoubi.
Performers
Present regular performers
- Akashiya Sanma
- Murakami Sho-ji
- Takahashi Ai (Morning Musume, regular since April, 2003)
- Michishige Sayumi (Morning Musume, regular since June, 2007)
Past regular performers
Sometimes graduated members can have appearances as substitutes.
- Tamai Kenji （October, 1992 - March, 2007）
- Katou Noriko （October, 1992 - February, 1997）
- Yoshimura Maki （a singer attached to UpFront at that time, March, 1997 - March, 1999, changed her name to Maki Rinko during her time as a regular）
- Taiyou to Ciscomoon (Shinoda Miho, Inaba Atsuko, RuRu, Kominato Miwa, April, 1999 - September, 2000, changed their name to “T&C Bomber” during their time as regulars)
- Abe Natsumi （Morning Musume, October, 2000 - March, 2002, July, 2004 - November, 2004, left because of a plagiarism riot)
- Yasuda Kei （Morning Musume, October, 2000 - March, 2002)
- Rinne (Country Musume, October, 2000 - October, 2002, left because of her retirement from Country Musume)
- Matsuura Aya （April, 2002 - March, 2003）
- Asami （Country Musume, April, 2002 - March, 2004）
- Satoda Mai （Country Musume, April, 2002 - March, 2004）
- Gotou Maki （April, 2003 - March, appears as a substitute for absent regulars）
- Kago Ai (April, 2003 - March, 2004, has had several appearances since her graduation)
- Shibata Ayumi （Melon Kinenbi, April, 2004 - March, 2006, appears as a substitute for absent regulars)
- Fujimoto Miki （Morning Musume, April, 2004 - June, 2007, left because of her retirement from Morning Musume）
Outline
The official title is “MBS YoungTown Doyoubi”, abbreviated Yantan, YanDo etc. In Rateran (an encyclopedia of all Japanese TV and radio programs) this show is called “Sanma’s Yantan”, emphasizing that this is Akashiya Sanma’s program. It’s only a local program in the Kansai district, but there are many listeners from other districts who listen to YoungTown per long-distance reception, sometimes even postcards from Hokkaido arrive.
The main personality is Akashiya Sanma. Since his first appearance in year 1976, he’s served as the personality of MBS YoungTown for about 30 years now. In October, 1992 Tamai Kenji and Katou Noriko joined Sanma and the broadcasting time changed from Sunday to Saturday. Later Murakami Sho-ji who had repeatedly appeared as a guest became an official regular. Thus the present set-up has been established.
In March 31, 2007 Tamai Kenji who’s been a regular for about 15 years graduated, stating health problems and devotion to music production studies in the future as his reasons.
Starting with Katou Noriko talents from the UpFront agency get promoted as female regulars. Since April, 1999 idols from Hello!Project have served as regulars and since October, 2000 these female regulars who are mostly members from Morning Musume and Country Musume are called the YanMusume (YanMusu). But which talent gets promoted strongly depends on the plans of UpFront agency. Members who had already graduated and Melon Kinenbi members except Shibata Ayumi have been repeatedly guests, but now the policy of YoungTown is to concentrate more on the regular performers, so there are hardly any new guest appearances anymore.
The recording takes place in the Tokyo Metropolitan area (in the Takebashi Palace Side Building, the branch office for daily broadcasts in Tokyo). Usually the show gets recorded on Fridays every week, but due to Akashiya Sanma’s schedule the recording day can change, 2 recordings can take place or the episode can turn into a compilation episode. During the week in New Year’s Holiday YoungTown gets replaced by other special programs. As a general rule the above mentioned broadcasting times are valid, but during the professional baseball season (April - September) the broadcasting time of YoungTown can be postponed because the show “MBS Tigers Nighter” doesn’t end at 21 o’clock in some cases.
The episode just before Akashiya Sanma’s birthday on July 1st is a birthday special every year. The other performers and staff people send him presents and special messages from celebrities are shown.
The opening theme is a remix version of 1990 in use since the head office of MBS moved into Chaya district. The ending theme is “Take it easy” by the Eagles in use since the times of “Yantan special Sunday - Akashiya Sanma’s nandemo koi!”. In the final episode of the year the song “Kissin’ Christmas (not because it’s Christmas)” produced in Sanma’s TV program “Merry X’mas Show” is used.
Corners
Present corners
Opening talk (OP talk)
Mainly Akashiya Sanma talks freely about recent news and events for about 20 minutes. At an appropriate moment the title call is said and the show goes into commercials.
Listener mail corner (Zenryaku no corner)
Akashiya Sanma presents postcards and mails sent from listeners and talks freely with the other performers about the topics mentioned in the contributions.
Oyakata Michishige’s corner (Oyakata are retired sumo wrestler who become coaches in the end)
Just like Michishige Sayumi’s family listeners send in foolish actions and remarks by their families and Michishige sets up an idiocy ranking from the contributions. The name of the corner “Oyakata Michishige” comes from the incident when Michishige’s face had become swollen at the end of her summer holidays. (since September 8, 2007)
Murakami’s blog corner
This corner collects joke materials from the listeners about Murakami Sho-ji’s everyday thoughts and events of the day in form of blog entries. The female performers read them out one by one. (since January 20, 2006)
Sanma-san wo iyashitai/Listener wo iyashitai/Listener wo iyaseru kana?/Listener wo iyasesou?/Listener wo iyasemasen (We want to heal Sanma-san/We want to heal the listeners/Can we heal the listeners?/It seems like we can heal the listeners?/We can’t heal the listeners)
In this corner the listeners send in phrases which are supposed to heal their hearts and the female performers read them out in a sexy way. Akashiya Sanma then decides if it was okay or not. But his judgement is extremely harsh and the female performers have to undergo Sanma’s strict lectures every time. Depending on Sanma’s final word and the skill of the female performers the title of this corner can change, the current title is “We can’t heal the listeners” (mainly because of Takahashi Ai though XD)
Irregular corners
Karaoke Box Sanchama
Tamai Kenji and the female performers sing parodies of famous songs about “happenings related to the performers”. The listeners send in the song selection and the song lyrics.
In some cases the new song of YanMusume members is performed on air. After Tamai’s graduation who was mostly in charge of this corner this became an irregular corner.
Sweets cooking
An irregular corner from the time when Gotou and Shibata were regulars.
The male performers have a taste of the sweets the two prepared before the recording of the program. The two characters Gotou who’s good at cooking and Shibata who’s bad at it have been established through this corner.
Past corners
The “YoungTown knowledge - The studio is a battlefield!” corner (Yantan no kokoroe - Studio wa senjou ya! no corner)
In this corner the listeners send in trivia about YoungTown the new regular Michishige Sayumi should know. (until August 25, 2007)
Ai’s “If it’s with Sho-ji-san I can do it!” corner (Ai no Sho-jisan to nara dekiru mon! no corner)
Listeners send in suggestions on what Takahashi Ai might be able to do and Takahashi tries to master it.
On May 18, 2007 the original title “Ai’s ‘I can do it by myself! corner’” (Ai no hitori de dekiru mon! no corner) has been changed to this. (April 4 - June 2, 2007)
YanDo boke lectureship featuring Sho-ji (Yando boke kouza featuring Sho-ji)
Originally in this corner the female performers had to undertake a lectureship as stated in the title, but later it has been changed into the “A-I-U-E-O composition” corner. The listeners send in two sentences starting with the first two vocals (a-i) and the female performers have to complete the composition. The female performers often have to undergo leading performer Akashiya Sanma’s strict teachings.
Actually veteran performer Murakami Sho-ji is supposed to demonstrate his superior skills in this corner, but in contrary it can also happen that he ends up getting advice from Sanma like the female performers do.
Murakami’s FanDo corner
A short term corner from April to May, 2005.
Ai’s Bakyu-n!
A short term corner in 2005.
Takahashi Ai was main.
YanDo song writing champion (Yando sakushi senshuken)
The female performers present song lyrics they’ve written and Tamai Kenji adds a melody to the winning lyrics. This corner hasn’t taken place since Abe Natsumi’s plagiarism riot. (until November, 2004)
Judgment corner (Osabaki no corner)
Reading letters sent in by the listeners, Abe Natsumi decides whether they’re white (not guilty) or black (guilty). (until November, 2004)
The “Last samurai - Cutting in two with a single stroke” corner (Saigo no samurai ittouryoudan no corner)
The listeners send in phrases used by weak men and the “last samurai” Akashiya Sanma decides if that man should live or not. (around 2004)
We want to heal Sanma-san! (Sanma-san wo iyashitai)
(April, 2004 - June, 2004)
We’re gonna make it the very best! (Nanmara saikou ni suru be~/Hitte saikou ni suru be~/Chou saikou ni suru jan)
In this corner Asami and Satoda challenge themselves in a dialogue.
Listeners had pointed out that the free talk corner “Country Musume’s the very best!” of their own radio program is terrible, so this corner has been introduced in order to train these two in free talk. (around 2003 - 2004)
Pakkuncho/Bomber Bomber/Sensei, Pakkun, dokkiri mokkori, vibe benri yo ne./Neo Pakkuncho/Pakkuncho 2002/Pakkuncho 2003/Pakkuncho 2004
The female performers have to read out harmless phrases in a sexy way and Akashiya Sanma decides the winner. (until February, 2004)
“Aim at becoming a DJ!” corner (Mezase DJ no corner)
The YanMusume challenge themselves at becoming Radio DJs. (until March, 2002)
Notes
The reason why Sanma still continues Yantan
In his earlier years as a public entertainer Akashiya Sanma used to skip programs and take a day off without permission causing a scandal. Normally he should have gotten a penalty because of that, but instead he was able to make an appointment to continue the daily broadcasts without a break. In order to repay this favor Sanma keeps on appearing in broadcasts everyday even now.
Once MBS YoungTown got into a crisis endangered to be replaced by programs competing for the same timeslot. However, Sanma said “We can’t let Yantan’s light be extinguished.” and he’s still serving as the personality of the show together with Shoufukutei Tsurube who’s currently in charge of Sunday’s Yantan even though the frame of the show has been reduced from daily to weekends only. Tsurube: “Until Sanma retires I won’t retire either.”.
Abe Natsumi’s plagiarism riot
In November, 2004 the lyrics Natsumi Abe (regular of that time) presented as her own in the corner “YanDo song writing champion” have been detected as plagiarism. Abe Natsumi herself hasn’t appeared in YoungTown anymore since the episode of November 27th of the same year stating a cold as the reason. The begin of the incident was when one listener noticed that the lyrics Abe presented as her own in the broadcast of November 20th resemble the lyrics of singer and songwriter Sakaki Izumi’s song “Saru no Uta”. At that time Abe had stated songwriting as her hobby in her official profile and she’s been presenting “her own poems” in her photobooks and essay collections for many years already, so this doubt spread in the blink of an eye and in the end all information media picked it up which led to a riot. YoungTown broadcasted an apology comment to the listeners as well as to the people concerned on December 11th of the same year. Akashiya Sanma said “Don’t worry about it too much.” directed to Abe, but she hasn’t appeared even once in YoungTown after that.
