NHK WORLD-JAPAN May 2018 Natsu Day 8 live sumo w/ English commentary

[yutarotanaka]

I know its been a few days after NHK WORLD-JAPAN's live sumo with English commentary for this aired but I'd like to share my thoughts on it.

I believe the commentators for that day are Raja Pradhan and another fellow named David Shapiro. I'm not quite familiar with David Shapiro though. I may have heard him during instances in Jason Harris YouTube videos when he turns up the volume so his viewers can hear the commentary for matches. So this will be the first time I'm hearing his commentary for an extended time. Also, I would just like to mention that I rarely hear English commentary in sumo coverage aside from the aforementioned tidbits from Jason's videos. The other occasion I was able to watch a sumo coverage with English commentary was last basho's Day 1 live sumo coverage by then NHK WORLD-TV with Murray Johnson and John Gunning as commentators which I thought was very well done.

Having said that, I felt that Raja and David were perhaps a bit rattled and there were instances that they were just all-over the place with their commentary. They overdid themselves by trying to appeal to both the potential new audience watching from outside Japan and their usual English speaking audience at the same time to what I personally thought was a bit of a mess. Like over-explaining things but rather than clarifying the situation, I felt that it added more confusion to new viewers and frustration for the long-time sumo fans/viewers. Their explanations could have been made more succinct and just perhaps give the link and refer them to the NHK WORLD-JAPAN's page on sumo for further info. They just laid it too thick with all the explaining in my humble opinion.

The graphics needed a bit of polishing too. It could have been perhaps spruced up a bit. I just felt it was too simple and bland. There are times where the graphics just appears and disappears too quickly. I also noted that there are times that the commentators just ignored the graphics on screen that I felt that they should be paying attention to or explaining a bit. Even if they do eventually pay attention to the graphics, the timing is off and the commentators tend to be left behind in their task to read or explain what was on the graphics displayed that they sounded like they were scrambling.

Look, I'm not poo-pooing on the efforts of NHK WORLD-JAPAN's or the commentators' efforts here. There was just a noticeable drop in the quality of the broadcast compared to the last time they did it. I hope I didn't sound mean or too critical here because that's not my intention. I just wanted to do my part as a humble fan of the show and sumo to try and provide constructive criticism in the hopes of improving future versions of it.

I do hope that NHK WORLD-JAPAN would continue and hopefully expand on their live sumo with English commentary coverage on the next tournaments.

How about you guys? Were you able to catch the live coverage also? What did you like or not like about the coverage? Love to hear your thoughts.

Edited May 24, 2018 by yutarotanaka

[Yatagarasu]

Honestly, I wasn't that impressed.  It was clearly the first time that David Shapiro and Raja Pradhan had worked together on commentary, so the dynamic really faltered at first, though they settled in eventually.  But I found David Shapiro, though very knowledgeable, really annoying - he has a very abrasive voice and inappropriately casual language.  I recall at one point he made some remark (I forget what now) and I was like 'did he actually say that on air?'.  Plus he basically walked over Raja every time he opened his mouth.  It was like the David Shapiro show.  It's hard for them to pitch the commentary at the right level and balance between not alienating entry level spectators, but at the same time not sacrificing intelligent commentary for the more seasoned viewer.  But this was not enjoyable at all.  I'd rather just watch the straight NHK coverage in Japanese and not understand 90% of what's being said.