All Night Fuji
オールナイトフジ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
College women on live late-night TV — the show that made 女子大生 a media category.
All Night Fuji was Fuji TV's late-night Saturday show, broadcast mostly live from 2 April 1983 to 30 March 1991, 400 episodes in all; its name echoed All Night Nippon, the late-night radio show of the same media group. Its first hosts were Naomi Akimoto and Mari Torigoe. Its regulars included the newly debuted comedy duo Tunnels, in their first regular show on Fuji TV, and the comedian Tsurutaro Kataoka, whose double act with Torigoe became a draw. Around them sat a group of real college women, the All-Niters, amateurs on live television.
The show set off Japan's college-girl boom. Some All-Niters became stars. Three of them formed the Okawari Sisters and released records, the first of the tie-in acts the show launched to make money on a late-night budget, and one of the three, Miki Yamazaki, went on to co-host. Critics complained that the students displayed little learning and laughed along with risqué talk.
In its first year and a half it had segments introducing adult videos and visiting sex businesses. It softened them when rival stations launched harder-edged live shows in 1984, and in 1985, after late-night programmes were raised in the Diet and the Nakasone cabinet told broadcasters, through the Ministry of Posts, to restrain them, it restarted as a pure variety show with no sex-industry topics. Hosts changed often, among them Iyo Matsumoto and Saya Takagi. The producer ended it at its 400th episode, saying it had achieved its purpose. Fuji TV later revived the idea as Campus Night Fuji and All Night Fujiko.
Starring
Naomi AkimotoHost
An actress and singer who co-hosted from the first broadcast in April 1983 until September 1984.
Mari TorigoeHost
A young entertainer who co-hosted from the start, whose double act with Tsurutaro Kataoka drew attention.
TunnelsRegulars
The comedy duo of Takaaki Ishibashi and Noritake Kinashi, newly debuted, in their first regular show on Fuji TV.
Tsurutaro KataokaRegular
A comedian whose on-air partnership with Torigoe became one of the show's attractions.
Miki YamazakiAll-Niter, later host
A Tokai University student in the All-Niters who formed the Okawari Sisters and co-hosted from October 1985 to March 1986.
Iyo MatsumotoHost
A pop idol who co-hosted from October 1984 to March 1986.
Why it matters
All Night Fuji is where Japanese television discovered the joshidaisei, the college woman, as a category to be looked at. It put real students on live television at midnight, let them be clumsy and unscripted, and turned some into stars, and in doing so it helped create a type the media would sell for years: the ordinary young woman as entertainment. It also shows how close that stood to the late-night sex shows of its day, and how quickly politics could change what television dared. In 1985 a request from the government, passed on through the ministry that oversaw broadcasting, was enough to strip sex-industry topics out of late night. What remained was a variety show about youth, amateurism and fun, and an unanswered question about who was laughing, and at whom.