Review Re-written September 29th, 2025.
Gaki No Tsukai Ya Arahende!! (Roughly translated as Downtown's "This is no task for kids!!") is at it's core, a comedy variety show where the cast plays games where the winners survive and the losers are punished. No prizes are handed out. Just painful, sometimes humiliating punishment. And it's some of the funniest things i've witnessed as a foreigner.
But the history of Gaki No Tsukai dates back to 1982, When the show's creators, Matsumoto Hitoshi and Hamada Masatoshi did their first on-screen appearance together, before officially performing as Downtown in 1983. However, they often were met with hecklers and couldn't get people to come to their performances, even when tickets were free. But their perseverance and determination paid off and in 1989, They officially began their program, Gaki no Tsukai, which over time, became very popular and eventually when it found it's way onto YouTube, found an international fanbase from people who otherwise would never have seen them.
And that means people like myself, a high schooler from the west coast of Canada in the late 2000's when I got to see the infamous high school batsu no laughing game where poor Endo couldn't help burst out laughing at a man who struggled to read english and count to 100.
You see, the closest type of comedy we had to Gaki No Tsukai was Jackass from MTV, and that was one of my generation's favorite shows. GNT took that modernized style of slapstick years before Jackass did. Except it was way more fun. GNT did the batsu game, which meant that whoever lost had to suffer a humiliating punishment or ridiculous task. My personal favorite is when Matsumoto had to be the SMPTE bars for a television station. Other punishments included Hamada having to travel to New York City to retrieve a specific pen cap for one of Matsumoto's pens, as well as Matsumoto dressing as a seal at an aquarium and doing what Hamada told him to do.
Over time, other comedians have joined the fray, including Endo, Tanaka, and Yamasaki, Heipo and Fujiwara, and they're all involved in the batsu games one way or another. The most popular of these games is the "No laughing" games where the players must survive a 24 hour period without laughing at the various "traps" laid out for them, which vary from their friends and family appearing on advertising for condoms or famous celebrities falling randomly into pits.
A few of Downtown's ideas have made their way to western television, the most famous one being the silent library game. It's great to know that some of their ideas have made it here, but I wish their content was available here legally. There are websites that host their content, but to be able to get it on DVD would be a godsend.
Look them up on YouTube. You will not be disappointed.
