stam4o wrote:So, who's he?
Wow.
I forget sometimes that we're still getting new fans who don't know the lore…
Takashi Okamura is a comedian. He's the
boke of the
manzai duo Ninety-Nine. His partner, Hiroyuki Yabe, is the
tsukkomi. Together they're the hosts / principle members of the hugely popular and long-running show
Mecha-Mecha Iketeru!, or "Mechaike" for short.
In the autumn of 2001, when MM were riding high on the Golden Era, Mechaike got together with Tsunku to arrange a special episode in which they took the girls on a school field trip, supposedly to make up for all of the normal experiences the girls miss while working after school and on weekends. Of course, being Mechaike, those normal experiences all went hilariously wrong.
As part of the premise, while the girls were on the trip they were no longer MM. Instead, they were students at Okamura Joshi Kōtō Gakkō (Okamura Girls High School), or "Okajo" for short, complete with their own uniforms and emblems.
And so began the Mechaike Okajo series of specials.
In the spring of 2003, Mechaike ambushed MM again and forced them all to take a real middle school evaluation test to see who was the
bakajo (stupid girl) of the class.
In the autumn of 2003, Mechaike ambushed MM
again and forced them all to participate in a real sports festival to see who was the
kusojo (crap girl) of the class.
And in the spring of 2004, Mechaike and MM worked together to ambush Tsuknu. This time, they pretended to be the Okajo Chorus Club, and they proceeded to mutilate several well known songs including some of Tsunku's own.
After that, MM went into their decline and Okajo just sort of disappeared.
Anyhow, the Mechaike Okajo specials are a huge part of the group's lore. They've all been subtitled by and for foreign fans, and they're still so fondly remembered in Japan that Fuji TV is releasing them on DVD ten years after the fact. That's why this recent appearance was such a big deal for us — we're hoping and praying that if MM continue to regain their popularity, there could be a new, full-length Okajo special.
Or something. Anything, really. Not just this one brief appearance to promote the DVDs…
When H!O is back up, I strongly recommend you search the tracker for "Mechaike Okajo" and download everything you find. In the meantime, here's an excerpt from the sports festival…
(Most of the specials are on DailyMotion, but they're poor quality and not well organized. Get the real things from the H!O tracker.)