Hidemi’s Rambling No.406

Japanese TV networks have aired fewer and fewer US TV dramas and Hollywood movies in recent years. Japanese satellite TV stations air some, but more and more of them have been dubbed into Japanese. I really hate dubbed programs. They are poorly dubbed by disastrously bad dubbing actors. It’s decisively strange to see Brad Pitt talking in Japanese. And the lines are misinterpreted badly enough to ruin the whole story. I just can’t stand watching them. This spring, a couple of new satellite TV stations started to broadcast in Japan. One of them is a totally dream channel for me, which airs old and new dramas and shows from America’s ABC, in English, for free. Since the announcement, I’d waited for the broadcasting for months with indescribable excitement. The station handed out a free exclusive remote for the channel at Seven Eleven stores as its opening promotion. I rushed to get one at a store and had anxiously counted down the days until the broadcasting started by holding the free remote in my hand. When the D-Day finally came, I found nothing but a black screen on the channel. Amid enormous disappointment, I looked up on the Internet, and realized the satellite dish of my apartment building is too out of date to receive the new stations. The dish is communal and I can’t replace it. I wrote a letter to the board but haven’t heard from it. I have a very slim chance, as it would cost money. Every single day, I tune to my dream station in the hope that it comes on by some chance. And every time, I sighed to a pitch-black screen…