Kasou Taishou (; Kinchan and Katori Shingo's All Japan Costume Grand Prix, internationally known as ''Masquerade'') is a semi-annual Japanese television

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp ...

that is run on

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...

and first aired in 1979. The program shows in which various amateur groups (or solo artists) perform short skits, which are rated by a panel of judges. Especially in recent years, many of the skits have revolved around clever methods of "faking"

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

tic special effects on a live stage. The show is hosted by

Kinichi Hagimoto is a Japanese comedian. He is active as a stage performer, emcee, and manager of the amateur Ibaraki Golden Golds (''ibaraki goruden gōruzu'') of the Japanese Baseball Association (''nippon yakyuu renmei''). Born in the Taitō ward of Tōky� ...

and

Shingo Katori is a Japanese actor, singer, television host, radio personality. He was the youngest member of SMAP, one of the best-selling boy band in Asia. After the group's disbandment on 31 December 2016, Katori has been pursuing his solo career. He left ...

. Worldwide, the most famous of these skits, and among the most successful at "fake special effects" was a skit which is widely known as "Matrix ping pong". On the 98th edition (February 6, 2021) of the program, Kinichi Hagimoto announced that this would be the last time that he will present the program.

Matrix ping pong

Matrix Ping Pong is the name of a popular movie clip from the show featuring performers playing

ping pong Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

with moves in the style of ''

The Matrix ''The Matrix'' is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in ''The Matrix'' film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantolia ...

'', using

kuroko are stagehands in traditional Japanese theatre, who dress all in black. Lexical background 黒衣 primarily read kurogo, differentiating from the other readings kokui/kokue/kuroginu "black clothes", the go/gi suffix underlining the wearing i ...

s—stagehands in

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance- drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is though ...

theatre—to hold the props up, facilitating humorous and otherwise impossible movements. Most of the elements in the performance are set against black to visibly obscure the stagehands. This performance, led by team captain Hideki Kajiwara (), won the competition on March 31, 2003. The clip became an internet meme.

International broadcast

The show is also aired internationally in some countries.

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

airs this programme under the name of "全民創意爭霸賽" on the

i-CABLE Entertainment Channel i-Cable Communications Limited () is Hong Kong telecommunications company owned by Forever Top (Asia) Limited, which acquired the company from The Wharf Group in 2017. Founded in 1999, the company provides broadband internet and pay-TV servi ...

with

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

dubbing.

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

on the other hand airs it under the name of ''Masquerade''. The Indonesian and Singaporean broadcasts under this title are aired dubbed, on MNCTV in Indonesian and MediaCorp okto in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

respectively, whereas the Malaysian broadcast on TV3 is aired with Malay subtitles. Southeast Asia also airs it as ''Masquerade (year)'' on Sony Gem TV aired every Christmas Day.

International versions

In the Philippines, the version of the show airs on

GMA Network GMA Network (Global Media Arts or simply GMA) is a Philippine free-to-air television and radio network. It is the flagship property of publicly traded GMA Network, Inc. Its first broadcast on television was on October 29, 1961. GMA Network (f ...

as part of ''Bilib Ka Ba Nights'' () block of the network under the name of ''Masquerade'' and hosted by Ariel Villasanta and Maverick Relova, it ran from August 20, 2008 until March 11, 2009.

In other popular culture

The show was featured in the music video for the 2004 single "

Flamboyant Flamboyant (from ) is a form of late Gothic architecture that developed in Europe in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, from around 1375 to the mid-16th century. It is characterized by double curves forming flame-like shapes in the bar-tr ...

" by British pop-duo Pet Shop Boys. Directed by Nico Beyer, the music video follows one of the real participants of the show that eventually goes on to win the competition with their recreation of

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions ...

References

External links

Official "Kinchan and Katori Shingo's All Japan Costume Grand Prix" homepage (in Japanese)
Japanese variety television shows Nippon TV original programming 1979 Japanese television series debuts 1970s Japanese television series 1980s Japanese television series 1990s Japanese television series 2000s Japanese television series 2010s Japanese television series Japanese television specials {{Japan-tv-prog-stub