The Fifth Travelers: A Study of "Suiyo Dodesho" and the Hanshi Community

2019/12/20

"Professor, there's an interesting message board on the internet. Why don't you study something like this?" a student told me about 18 years ago. At the time, I was teaching data analysis in the Department of Information and Social Studies at a junior college. Japanese websites were finally starting to appear on the internet, but most of them just "existed" and were never updated. Therefore, as a social psychologist, I wasn't very interested.

But the message board I was told about was strangely amusing. TV program producers frequently posted and interacted with submissions from viewers; while it was intimate, it also felt like they were performing ogiri (comedic improvisation). They even ended up doing advice columns for people's troubles. It was truly a compelling read. This was my first encounter with "Suiyo Dodesho" (How Do You Like Wednesday?) (HTB). Known for featuring actor Yo Oizumi, this program was broadcast regularly as a local show in Hokkaido from 1996 to 2002, and new episodes are still produced irregularly today, with reruns airing across Japan.

Thinking I might be able to research it, I printed out the message board several times using a roll-paper printer and looked it over. Unfortunately, shortly after, I was swept up in the wave of the junior college's struggle to become a four-year university, making research impossible, and I eventually moved to another university.

It was three years ago that I finally watched the show properly. "So this is what the show was like," I thought. After the earthquake, I became interested in how fans in Tohoku watched this show repeatedly. I joined the producers' paid fan club on social media, and they were so interesting that I spent about two and a half years following them. Now, I have written a book. There were many surprises. The annual operating profit from DVD sales, program syndication, and other sources is comparable to that of a small local station. Its success is based on a close relationship with highly loyal fans called "Hanshi," which sets it apart from the TV business model of earning advertising revenue based on viewership ratings. Furthermore, many people recovered from crises (resilience effect) by watching the program and were grateful. When I sent a copy of the book to the graduate mentioned at the beginning, who is now a mother of three, she replied, "I was also saved by the show."

Fortunately, the book has been well-received, with reviews already appearing in local newspapers and weekly magazines, such as "A book that demonstrates the potential of television" (Shinano Mainichi, October 30), and I have also been interviewed. The fan base is actually quite broad. Since the program existed during the transition period to the internet, the book became both a study of media theory and community theory. Even those who don't know much about the show should find something new.

The Fifth Travelers: A Study of "Suiyo Dodesho" and the Hanshi Community

Sumire Hirota

Keio University Press

272 pages, 1,600 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.