Dasshutsu Game DERO!: Into the Japanese Language
- Garrett Bice
- Sep 17, 2025
- 4 min read
I view Japan as the land of amusing innovation. From its media, their smooth bullet trains, to the “shoe umbrella” (which I suppose would be useful), Japan is forward-thinking in a direction that’s different from all other countries. What I find most interesting, however, is the development that has existed for centuries: the isolated island’s language.
You see, rather than our simple alphabet we observe monotonously, Japanese has three different yet purposeful sets of characters. The most equivalent to our alphabet system in Japanese is hiragana (ひらがな), which is used to insert grammatical elements and spell or represent words native to the language. But, separately from letters, hiragana characters contain an entire syllable as a consonant sound and a vowel sound combined. To distinguish these from the other systems, look for freeform shapes and curviness.
Second is the system of katakana (カタカナ), which represents foreign words or onomatopoeia (words used for writing out sounds). Katakana acts in parallel to hiragana, and with little exception, every syllable within Japanese can be represented as a character in hiragana and katakana. Examples of familiar words in katakana are トランポリン [TO-RA-N-PO-RI-N] (trampoline) and カンガルー [KA-N-GA-RU] (kangaroo). Katakana looks more rigid and directional than hiragana.
Finally, we have kanji (漢字), which represent the most basic yet necessary words in Japanese, the essential words that all languages have a foundation upon. Kanji builds up from smaller symbols (called radicals) as well as other recognizable kanji. For example, 茗 is a kanji formed from 艹 and 名 (which is also formed from 夕 and 口). To recognize kanji, observe if it looks like either a complete mess of lines or symbol combinations.
All three character sets (hiragana, katakana, kanji) allow each character to be written in the same size square in writing. This means that one hiragana character takes up the same space on the paper in writing as one kanji, despite the complexity.
The reason I dumped all this information on you is to introduce you to the amazing Japanese game show, Dasshutsu Game DERO! This program, which ran from 2009-2011, consisted of challenge rooms that scared the contestants in dangerous scenarios, such as a flooding room or a shrinking balance beam above the abyss. The show utilized the Japanese language in puzzles and trivia in a manner that simply cannot be replicated in English.
The first puzzle I want to point out resembles a vision chart. The chart flashes directional signs across rows, and the chart includes kanji above each column. To solve this, players had to look at the kanji and observe the lit directions to single out one part of the kanji. Upon a closer look, the pieces of the kanji in those directions form the word メロン (melon)! And so, the key is found under the melon.
My first insight is found here. From this puzzle, I gained the knowledge that familiar symbols are transferred and shared across the three letter systems. As I found out recently, katakana actually means “fragmented kana”, as the symbols are derived from kanji! It also turns out that, since this is true, katakana are somewhat self-similar.
This is seen in this “rewrite the words” puzzle. The trick here is to see that in
ミノレク, the ノ and レ can combine to form ル. Altogether, the word is ミルク, meaning “milk”!
Our alphabet simply does not allow this. It would look awkward and nonsensical to smash any two different letters together in the English language as one character.
Another feature of the show is the kanji illustration quiz. These puzzles demonstrate the versatility of kanji in symbolism. In the first puzzle, I could recognize that the 人 kanji means person, and I figured out that the lines below indicated flying up into the air, meaning the answer has to be trampoline! The second puzzle had the 口 kanji, which I know means mouth, but I couldn’t get the solution of “esophageal camera” in time (what a strange answer)!
The point is, because of the structure of kanji as a build-up/break-down square-boxed symbol system, these puzzles can be constructed in visually appealing and recognizable ways that would not function the same in English. For our language, we would have to take long, rectangular words and squash them in awkward ways. In Japanese, it just WORKS.
Finally, we have the monster room. The contestants have to crawl away from the monster by solving anagram puzzles involving hiragana blocks. My focus here is on the very first puzzle, where the word spelled forwards has one meaning, while the word spelled backwards has another.
Because Japanese characters are syllables rather than single letters, the complications of anagrams when compared to English are streamlined. In Japanese, there are only five vowel sounds, and each character syllable (consonant-vowel pairing) is pronounced and written the same (disregarding regional accents).
When we go over to English, disaster strikes. Our language has at least double the amount of common vowel sounds, and when combined with consonant explosions, we have an endless mess of syllables. Seriously, when “ow”, “ou”, and “ough” can all be pronounced the same, how can I have fun with same-spelling wordplay? And when I spell words backwards, I am at a loss for words. Can you think of three words that are also valid words when spelled backwards?
There’s still more to this gameshow than this handful of puzzles. With extra rooms and an interesting cast, it’s quite a good watch. Even without the proper knowledge of Japanese required to be fully engaged with the show, it is still nice to view the visual puzzles and reactions and interactions of the players. After its two year run, DERO! evolved into its sequel, TORE!, with a newly furnished temple escape theme that further emphasizes the run-down aesthetic of the original show.
Thank you for reading all the way here! I’m glad you took the time to glance at my first article. I hope you learned something from this as I did. Now that I’ve reached 1000 words, it’s time that I stop. Goodbye!
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