From our other sites
The story
On September 12, the first domestic qualifying round for Nippon TV’s popular special program “Trans-America Ultra Quiz” was held at Giants Town Stadium in Inagi City, Tokyo. It was also announced that the broadcast will air over two consecutive nights on New Year’s Day, January 1 and 2, 2027. The show ended in 1992, and a 2007 attempt to revive it as “Comedy Ultra Quiz” was poorly received. On 5ch, viewers old enough to remember the original weighed in with a range of reactions — about the smaller turnout this time, the selection process, the challenges of running a quiz show in the era of smartphones and generative AI, and fond memories of hosts from years past.
Nikkan Sports
[September 13, 2026, 4:30 AM]
The first domestic qualifying round for “Trans-America Ultra Quiz,” the viewer-participation mega quiz show Nippon TV will air as a major year-end/New Year’s special, was held on the 12th at Giants Town Stadium in Inagi City, Tokyo. It was also announced that the broadcast will run over two consecutive nights on New Year’s Day, January 1 and 2, 2027.
Source: nikkansports.com / Original article here
What people said
Only brain-dead idiots watch this stuff anymore.
That's because they're all cheap to produce.
They can't spend money like they used to, so every show ends up looking the same.
It'll probably just be out-of-work celebrities and streamers looking for publicity.
Ha, sounds like the same lineup you'd see on 'Nige-chuu' (a Japanese cops-and-robbers hide-and-seek show).
In the end they'll probably just pull compliant extras from some talent agency.
Because these days, attention-seekers will do literally anything to leave a mark.
We're well past the era when you could livestream something like the 'soy-sauce-bottle-licking' prank to the whole world.
Maybe it's just secondhand embarrassment, I don't know.
Fukuzawa's the one who's to blame for ending the show in the first place, honestly.
The first spin-off, the biggest loser's-bracket special in the show's history, went up against kouhakunit, though.
Ah, my text got garbled somehow.
I meant it went head-to-head with Kohaku (NHK's New Year's Eve music special).
They probably only remember the show from around 1990.
NTV: Comedy Ultra Quiz, Fuji: SMAP×SMAP, TV Asahi: Aibou (Tower of Babel special)
Now that was a fierce ratings battle.
Yeah, there was an open call.
They aired highlight reels of the old show and announced it during those too.
https://thetv.jp/i/nw/1440586/18508630.jpg
That's like a tenth of the turnout at its peak.
Probably about 20,000 yen (~$135) for the day, transportation included.
This time there was a document-screening selection process, so naturally fewer people made it through.
Like anyone's got time to Google the answer during a True/False quiz round.
I thought this was going to be a weekly show.
Back in the Thursday Special days it was 90 minutes x 4 episodes, so 3 hours x 2 days actually works out to about the same total runtime.
Thinking about it now, that's absurdly stupid (lol)
Variety shows still do that kind of thing to this day.
By the time I was old enough to actually go on, they'd already stopped making it.
Now that it's back, the qualifier date happened to fall during literally the one stretch my current job won't let me take off.
An old-timer like you probably would've been cut in the pre-qualifier round anyway.
Almost everyone under 30 got through, but it was a really narrow gate for anyone over 40.
https://www.fami-geki.com/ultraquiz/11/img/cont02_img03.jpg
|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣|
| ＿ /ヽ ./ヽ /| ＿＿ .|
| ＼￣｀─–､＿/ ＼/ ＼/ |､–￣ / .|
| ＼. ＿ ＿＿＿ [][] ＿ / .|
| ／. | | .┌┐ |＿＿ | | | ｀ 、 .|
| ＜´ | | | .| |. | | | ＞ |
| 丶 | | .| | |. | | | へ ／ |
| ／ / ..| | | / ヽ | | / / ｀丶 、 .|
|∠＿ / / | .| ／ ﾍ .ヽ .| レ / _ ,＞..|
| ｿ ヽ/ |___| ヽ／ .ヽ/ 「 ／ - |
| / ｀￣´ | |
| /、–￣ | ／＼ /＼ /＼ | .|
| | ／ ＼ / ＼ / ＼ | . |
| ´ ｖ .｀ｖ ＼ | .|
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
And Tome says it again with that same delighted look on his face.
These days people would just ask generative AI.
The question writers aren't idiots either, they'll account for that.
They can easily do stuff like 'True or False: Sho Sakurai ate Japanese food for breakfast this morning.'
Honestly, the whole thing's dead on arrival if it's over after just two days of broadcast.
There's no time to build any attachment to it.
What I'm genuinely worried about is that since it's supposedly going around the world,
the finals end up being like 'In Seoul, South Korea!' or something.
Background and Key Points of This Story
“Trans-America Ultra Quiz” ended in 1992, and a 2007 attempt to revive it as “Comedy Ultra Quiz” was poorly received — this marks the first full-fledged revival since then. Right now the show is only at the early stage of domestic first-round qualifiers, and details like overseas filming locations, the cast, and whether there will be forfeit-style penalty games have not yet been announced. Opinion on the thread split mainly over how to read the participant numbers: some argued the document-screening selection process naturally narrowed the field compared to the frenzied Korakuen Stadium era, while others saw it as simply reflecting “an age when it’s harder to get ordinary people to show up.” Another sticking point was how a quiz format can even work in an era when smartphones and generative AI are the norm, with many voicing doubt about how well that fits the old “use any method you like” rule. One thing readers could easily get wrong: only the two-night New Year’s broadcast slot has been decided so far — the scale of the show and whether overseas filming will actually happen remain unconfirmed.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread “Nippon TV’s major special “Trans-America Ultra Quiz” domestic first-round qualifiers kick off, two-night New Year’s broadcast also confirmed — January 1 and 2, 2027.”
Leave a Reply