U.S. TV shows in Japan?

[drpepper]

Don't know if this has been asked 40,000 times (did a quick search and didn't find anything) but....


Anyone know where to get videos/dvds or whatever of currently happening shows in the U.S.? (ER, CSI, LOST etc..) I have heard of 'services' like this from other people but nobody has been able to get me any specifics.. just thought to ask...

[Big Booger]

I know of a few ways. Ask a friend to copy them and send them via snail mail.

Skyperfect TV shows quite a few american programs. CSI, ALIAS, etc... but they are usually 1 or 2 seasons behind.. Like right now on AXN, CSI is only in Las Vegas.

http://www.skyperfectv.co.jp/en/guide/index.html

Something like this might also help:

http://tv.org/index.php?revshare=aff_piggies_30_12_200

Other than that.. I dunno any other legal means to obtaining the programming you are interested in.

[chidsta]

go on ebay and buy asian editions of any US TV shows dirt cheap. Way cheaper than the R1 of US and R2 of the UK, plus they are multi region and work fine. Usually shiped from Shanghai or Hong-Kong.
They have all mainstream stuff like smallville, 24, six feet under, alias, buffy, angel, roswell, csi, csi miami, star gate, star trek generation and the rest, x-files, loser, will & grace, frasier, queer as folk .....etc etc etc etc etc the list is endless, and price is so cheap... May be infriging copyright legislation slightly but you gotta do what you gotta do when you can't even get hold of originals.

Just be careful you don't become the ultimate hermit! (Like me)

[drpepper]

Snail mail has worked in the past but it is a real pain trying to get any of the relatives to go through all the trouble and expense. I will keep trolling through the web maybe there is something else out there. Thanks for the info though!

[drpepper]

go on ebay and buy asian editions of any US TV shows dirt cheap. Way cheaper than the R1 of US and R2 of the UK, plus they are multi region and work fine. Usually shiped from Shanghai or Hong-Kong.
They have all mainstream stuff like smallville, 24, six feet under, alias, buffy, angel, roswell, csi, csi miami, star gate, star trek generation and the rest, x-files, loser, will & grace, frasier, queer as folk .....etc etc etc etc etc the list is endless, and price is so cheap...

Just be careful you don't become the ultimate hermit! (Like me)

Are those current ones? Or rips of the DVD's of previous seasons? It would be kewl to be up to date on shows and stuff...

[chidsta]

as for the asian edition dvds, yeah they are up to date mostly. maybe one season behind sometimes. like angel 5 just came out last month. and queer as folk 4. smallville 4 will be out pretty soon.

its 5pm yey! work is over, must dash, will continue tommorow!
x

[Watcher]

There are ways which are not allowed to be discussed here. The only one that seems easily distributed and somewhat legally as it is open and not sued by the creators (kind of like a blessing?) is South Park. You can grab those from Awesomo.net and other sites.
I used to grab a few key shows... ER was not one of them as it was shown on NHK and nothing changes on that show except the cast... zzzzzzz. My favourite shows were West Wing, Chapelle Show, and Daily Show (clips available on Comedy Central).
Out of the new season... best shows are: House (surly genious doctor mentors rag tag bunch of young doctors), 24 season 4 (better than season 3 though slips into soap opera, while minimal, are awkward and weak... good twists), and CSI New York (I don't much like Miami... Gary Sinise is cool).

[Samurai_Jerk]

I say just break your addiction to television. If you're willing to go to all that effort just to see some TV shows you have a problem. I watched TV all the time before I moved to Japan. Once I was there I pretty much stopped since there was nothing on the Japanese networks that interested me. I might have watched sumo or K-1 sometimes and tried to catch the news occasionally but that was it. Even though I'm back in the States and have cable TV, I never really have gotten back into the habit.

[Charles]

I say just break your addiction to television. If you're willing to go to all that effort just to see some TV shows you have a problem...

[dimwit]

Snail mail has worked in the past but it is a real pain trying to get any of the relatives to go through all the trouble and expense. I will keep trolling through the web maybe there is something else out there. Thanks for the info though!

The biggest problem with having relative sending you videos is that you end up with 5 millions videos and no place to store them. Personally, I just watch sky and forget about the fact they are a year or two behind. It's only TV!

[GuyJean]

I say just break your addiction to television.

Good plan..

Check out this thread about a Sony Airboard, base station, and Location Free allowing you to watch American TV in Japan..

http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11141

You'll need the base station connected to cable in the States, but what the hey.. Give it a shot..

GJ

[kamome]

Head over to your local Tsutaya and rent it. Tsutaya carries most of the US TV series on DVD. All you need is a player that handles region 2.

[drpepper]

Head over to your local Tsutaya and rent it. Tsutaya carries most of the US TV series on DVD. All you need is a player that handles region 2.

Been there done that... they carry very few shows (only those that were translated into japanese...) and they are at least 2 years old...

Friend of mine here in Osaka just told me that someone was doing dvd's of recent shows and selling them online... like only a week lapse or so.. some local guy I guess he heard about it from the guy at some bar, anyways he is going to get back to me with the url, it may be just the thing I am looking for, cheap, fast and an easy quick fix for my TV addictions.

[Big Booger]

broadcasters are sticking themselves in the rectum for not making TV shows a downloadable medium/subscribable service because I'd be one of the first to subscribe..

[devicenull]

Absolutely no warez or otherwise illegal links or discussion will be permitted. This includes "theoretical" discussions and euphemistic references. A few of the prohibited topics include:

filesharing copyrighted material

[plaid_knight]

http://www.amazon.com has just about everything you'd need, and if you're planning on a trip back home for a visit you could have your friend receive used copies of the things you order and then pick them up when you see him.

As for the space issue, it's not that big of a deal if you do this:

buy those thin cases for cds. Take your DVDs out of their regular cases and put them in the thinline cases. Toss the regular cases.

[kamome]

Head over to your local Tsutaya and rent it. Tsutaya carries most of the US TV series on DVD. All you need is a player that handles region 2.

Been there done that... they carry very few shows (only those that were translated into japanese...) and they are at least 2 years old...

You must have a shitty Tsutaya in your neighborhood. I lived near one that had all the big series and was quite updated. Of course, you don't get this season's episodes, but they have everything else.

[drpepper]

I don't have a shitty one at all but they most certainly don't have many TV series because they simply have not been put on DVD. If you want to find ER then yes I could rent a year and a half ago's season of ER, but if I want to see 80% of all the other shows there are then I am out of luck.

Well anyways I am gonna try this DVD service place my friend told me about. It is not really all that different then the old package from home services that were around years ago. I really am not interested in dowloading or going through any of that mess. I just want some gaijin-tv, so that is what I will try. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Big Booger]

One show I highly recommend is
DEADWOOD

Great series from HBO. Totally filthy in terms of explicitness. Not for children.

Editorial Review:
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The remarkable first season of Deadwood represents one of those periodic, wholesale reinventions of the Western that is as different from, say, Lonesome Dove as that miniseries is from Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo or the latter is from Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur. In many ways, HBO's Deadwood embraces the Western's unambiguous morality during the cinema's silent era through the 1930s while also blazing trails through a post-NYPD Blue, post-The West Wing television age exalting dense and customized dialogue. On top of that, Deadwood has managed an original look and texture for a familiar genre: gritty, chaotic, and surging with both dark and hopeful energy. Yet the show's creator, erstwhile NYPD Blue head writer David Milch, never ridicules or condescends to his more grasping, futile characters or overstates the virtues of his heroic ones.

Set in an ungoverned stretch of South Dakota soon after the 1876 Custer massacre, Deadwood concerns a lawless, evolving town attracting fortune-seekers, drifters, tyrants, and burned-out adventurers searching for a card game and a place to die. Others, particularly women trapped in prostitution, sundry do-gooders, and hangers-on have nowhere else to go. Into this pool of aspiration and nightmare arrive former Montana lawman Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and his friend Sol Starr (John Hawkes), determined to open a lucrative hardware business. Over time, their paths cross with a weary but still formidable Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) and his doting companion, the coarse angel Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert); an aristocratic, drug-addicted widow (Molly Parker) trying to salvage a gold mining claim; and a despondent hooker (Paula Malcomson) who cares, briefly, for an orphaned girl. Casting a giant shadow over all is a blood-soaked king, Gem Saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), possibly the best, most complex, and mesmerizing villain seen on TV in years. Over 12 episodes, each of these characters, and many others, will forge alliances and feuds, cope with disasters (such as smallpox), and move--almost invisibly but inexorably--toward some semblance of order and common cause. Making it all worthwhile is Milch's masterful dialogue--often profane, sometimes courtly and civilized, never perfunctory--and the brilliant acting of the aforementioned performers plus Brad Dourif, Leon Rippy, Powers Boothe, and Kim Dickens. --Tom Keogh


Great series worth a watch. They are into season two, episode 9 and not a single episode has lost my focus on the show.

[Buraku]

There are ways which are not allowed to be discussed here. The only one that seems easily distributed and somewhat legally as it is open and not sued by the creators (kind of like a blessing?) is South Park. You can grab those from Awesomo.net and other sites.
I used to grab a few key shows... ER was not one of them as it was shown on NHK and nothing changes on that show except the cast... zzzzzzz. My favourite shows were West Wing, Chapelle Show, and Daily Show (clips available on Comedy Central).
Out of the new season... best shows are: House (surly genious doctor mentors rag tag bunch of young doctors), 24 season 4 (better than season 3 though slips into soap opera, while minimal, are awkward and weak... good twists), and CSI New York (I don't much like Miami... Gary Sinise is cool).

pretty good idea

[Buraku]

best Tv show



that's the one with Lyekka Vs Japan

[plaid_knight]

Deadwood and Bill Maher are the two best series that
HBO has going for it. The aforementioned two are much better than
Crime Family Show, the Gay Sex Death Hour, or Sluts in the City.

[Taka-Okami]

MORE SEX LESS TV

[dimwit]

They showed 'Gay or not' on Fox last night, (I think it is called Playing it Straightin the US) which I couldn't imagine waiting a year or two to see. Simply remember 90% of the American TV you are missing is stuff you wouldn't have earthly reason for watching.

[drpepper]

Thanks for the input from everyone (private messages included), I got those DVD's from the place I mentioned earlier, they work fine. Pop into the old DVD player and there are last week's shows. Could not be easier really. Quality is decent, certainly better than trying to watch something on my little computer screen and tiny speaker, good enough for TV shows. So far I am pretty happy with it, hassle free is good for me, less that my brain will have to remember. The place is http://www.gaijin-tv.com if anyone is interested. Looks like a small outfit but so far so good.

[emperor]

chappelle's back!