Japanese TV vs American Reality

America turned itself into a reality show. Why didn’t Japan?

I moved from the U.S. to Japan in the spring of 2003. As a result, I missed seeing one of the single biggest developments in American pop culture unfold: the explosive rise of reality television. It’s almost trite to note that we’ve elected a reality TV star to the presidency twice, or that his reality TV style has reshaped the law of the land, transfor…