Hit TV Satire Reveals How Japanese Society Has Changed

Tokyo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Mar, 2024) A time-travelling tv comedy with a bawdy middle-aged hero has become a big hit in Japan, juxtaposing the country's brash 1980s boom years with its more politically correct present day.

In the series, titled "Extremely Inappropriate", the past isn't rose-tinted: there's smoking on the bus, boobs on television and corporal punishment galore.

But modern Japan doesn't get a free pass either.

When schoolteacher and father Ichiro Ogawa is catapulted from 1986 to 2024, he scandalises millennials and Gen Z-ers with his disregard for their views on gender, family and labour rights.

Implicit in his candid words is a question: is society today, with its good intentions around issues like diversity and work-life balance, really all it's cracked up to be?

The show's satire of how Japan has changed over the decades has struck a chord with viewers young and old.

Last month, it became the first programme made by major broadcaster TBS to top Netflix's most-watched list in Japan for three weeks running.

Producer Aki Isoyama, who is 56, initially thought it would be "very challenging" to poke fun at today's progressive values without triggering a backlash from the public.

The show isn't meant as a verdict on the superiority of one era over the other, she told AFP.

But one inspiration for her and screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, 53, was the idea that "life has become more difficult in some aspects today".

"Our society has certainly gotten better, but in a way more restrictive, too, with everything dictated by compliance and protocols," Isoyama said.

Today, when something is pronounced unacceptable, "we often unquestioningly accept that explanation and refrain from saying or doing it," she added.

"The show will hopefully make viewers stop and ask themselves: 'Why was it banned in the first place?'"