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The story
On the September 2 broadcast of ‘Suiyoubi no Downtown’ (TBS), a segment called the “National Route Ramen Marathon” aired, in which cast members ran along the Kanjo-8 ring road and had to finish an entire bowl of ramen at every shop they passed. The broadcast included a scene of a cast member vomiting, and afterward food journalist Rikiya Yamaji published a Yahoo! News article criticizing the segment for a “lack of respect toward the ramen shops” and expressing his displeasure. The segment is a recurring, popular one that has aired several times before, but some observers say the addition of a vomiting scene this time intensified the backlash. Reaction on 5ch is split — some defend the show as “gloriously indifferent to compliance and genuinely funny,” while others debated the critic’s credentials and whether his comments were fair.
Rikiya Yamaji, Food Journalist
The segment “National Route Ramen Marathon” from the September 2 broadcast of ‘Suiyoubi no Downtown’ (TBS) has stirred controversy. The show had cast members run from Haneda to Ogikubo along the Kanjo-8 ring road under a big-eating-race rule: every time they passed a ramen shop, they had to finish an entire bowl. The broadcast included scenes of cast members vomiting, among other things.
Since the episode aired, opinions on social media have been split, but as someone who eats his way through ramen shops daily as a ramen critic, I honestly couldn’t help but feel “discomfort” at what was shown.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Is this even funny?
Boom. Argument won.
He probably watched it without knowing what it was and got upset.
If he'd known it would upset him, he wouldn't have watched.
They went into shops that had said no filming too — they just didn't show the inside of the shop.
It's not even that great of a food to begin with. No decent person eats ramen.
It's impressive he still wrote up ramen reviews after eating in that state and posted them after the broadcast
They've already done this 4 times. It blew up this time because of the puking scene.
Having done it 4 times also means it's a popular segment
This time was the funniest one yet
Background and Key Points of This Story
The “National Route Ramen Marathon” eat-it-all segment on ‘Suiyoubi no Downtown’ isn’t a first — 5ch users pointed out it has aired multiple times before. The sticking point was whether the production had informed the shops in advance about the segment’s content and whether it could air, with some defending the show by assuming prior permission was obtained, while others argued that broadcasting cast members eating in visible distress or vomiting in front of a shop is inherently disrespectful regardless of permission. Opinions on food journalist Rikiya Yamaji’s “ramen critic” title were also split, and the discussion tended to blur together opinions on the segment itself with opinions on the critic who raised the objection — a distinction worth reading carefully. Neither the article nor the thread confirms exactly how much coordination actually took place between the show and the shops beforehand, so that point remains speculation.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Suiyoubi no Downtown] Ramen critic’s discomfort over the National Route Ramen Marathon… a punishment-game-like segment shows ‘lack of respect toward ramen shops’.”
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