Takeshi’s Castle is back! UK television gets its best ever version of the Japanese gameshow

“Except that’s not the case. For the first time, British audiences get to see entire episodes of Takeshi’s Castle as it was designed to be seen by Japanese viewers. Not sneered at by Chris Tarrant, or packaged with a culturally insensitive “oriental riff” influenced theme tune. No, these are new episodes, in full, with graphics, in-studio analysis and actual rules. We even get to know the contestants, which is refreshing after decades of seeing them as, essentially, a procession of screaming crash test dummies.”

[…]

“But you know what might have been even better? Giving us the show just as it is. The success of Netflix’s Old Enough last year should be proof that global audiences are now sophisticated enough to enjoy non-scripted Japanese shows without having their hands held via the medium of jokey commentary. As fun as Romesh and Tom are, perhaps a better idea would have been a straight, subtitled version of Takeshi’s Castle. Clearly, our relationship to the show is still evolving. Maybe in another 30 years we’ll get what we actually want from it.”

Unfortunately, seems to be on Prime Video only.