Apr 13, 2013

读心人?Mentalist? いるんですか?

One of my favourite hobbies when I was still in Japan was to catch the thrice-weekly dose of Arashi 嵐 via the television variety shows. Back in Singapore, it became almost impossible to catch them. But coincidentally tonight, I managed to catch a past episode of 嵐にしやがれ in Japanese.

For every episode of 嵐にしやがれ a mysterious guest will be invited to share some of their best skills/ knowledge with 嵐. It's fun, mostly because 嵐 will not know who will be invited beforehand. Hence, it is quite interesting to watch their reaction and how they rise to the various challenges as the show progresses.

Umm.. I digressed. Back to the topic. For this particular episode I watched, the guest was DaiGo. At first, just by looking at his name, I thought he would be the singer, Daigo. But nope, the guest was the mentalist, DaiGo, instead.



The first impression he gave me was.. oh.. he's a magician! But nope, he was quick to correct that he is not a magician, as a magician performs tricks to surprise people. But he performs tricks to make people relax before him, and therefore allowing him to accurately read their behaviours and subsequently their minds.

I find what he taught in the show very intriguing. Here are some tips he share, in the chronological order as the show progresses:

DaiGo commenting on Aiba's and Jun's standing postures as he watched via the monitor before he entered the set:
1. When 2 people behave very similarly, (How do they rest their hands? Posture? Where do they shift their weight?) we can tell that their relationship is very close. Most likely, they would be couples.
>> Ah.. I draw relevance to 夫妇脸. Don't they always say as the relationship grows stronger, couples tend to look alike too?

DaiGo explaining that everyone can be a mentalist like him, while performing the fork trick:
2. With observation (closely monitoring the body actions), understanding the human psych, clever use of optical illusion, physics and various science laws which he rattled on, everyone can do it.
>> Umm... seriously, I think if you give me another 100 years, I wouldn't be able to fold a fork into a flowery ornament like he did. That fork trick seriously had me thinking he must have some form of psychic power.

DaiGo commenting on why Nino gave the slip:
2. Our mouths tend to slip. Even when we consciously not speak. Unconsciously, when the particular word/ phrase is mentioned, our mouths will move slightly, hence hinting the mentalist that that is the answer.
>> Another one I have heard is about the eyeball movement when one speaks. If the person looks up towards the left, he is likely recalling a past incident, hence speaking the truth. But if he is looking towards the right, he is likely making up. Hence, telling a lie.

DaiGo sharing the meaning behind colours during the sushi guessing game:
3. Blue colour does not induce appetite; red colour is too close to the colour of tuna, hence he picked green, which contrasts best with tuna.
>> I'm going to keep a lookout for the colours used for sushi plates when I next visit a sushi restaurant!

Kusano-san commenting on how he keep his cool before DaiGo:
4. Maintain a neutral stand. (DaiGo explains, as Kusano-san is a quiz MC, he has many years experience on maintaining a neutral stand. Once he is in a work-mode, consciously and unconsciously he has discarded his thoughts and hence, guests on his show cannot guess the answers from his expression) Kusano-san also clenched his left fist tight even though his right fist is the one which held the ring. This is to give the impression that both his hands are holding something.

If the bending of fork, and eerily correct guesses of the games does not freak you out. The last game probably did for me. Without looking, he managed to guess the seating arrangement of Jun, Sho and Ono. He explained that that he did that by actually coercing them into the seating arrangement unconsciously.

That is one scary 读心人.

怖ぇ~

No comments: