\n<\/p>\n
The younger generation in Japan has frequently called out their elders for their casual sexism<\/a>, excessive work expectations<\/a> and unwillingness to give up power<\/a>.<\/p>\n But a surprise television hit has people talking about whether the oldsters might have gotten a few things right, especially as some in Japan \u2014 like their counterparts in the United States<\/a> and Europe<\/a> \u2014 question the heightened sensitivities associated with \u201cwokeness.\u201d<\/p>\n The show, \u201cExtremely Inappropriate!,\u201d features a foul-talking, crotchety physical education teacher and widowed father who boards a public bus in 1986 Japan and finds himself whisked to 2024.<\/p>\n He leaves an era when it was perfectly acceptable to spank students with baseball bats, smoke on public transit and treat women like second-class citizens. Landing in the present, he discovers a country transformed by cellphones, social media and a workplace environment where managers obsessively monitor employees for signs of harassment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The show was one of the country\u2019s most popular when its 10 episodes aired at the beginning of the year on TBS, one of Japan\u2019s main television networks. It is also streaming on Netflix<\/a>, where it spent four weeks as the platform\u2019s No. 1 show in Japan.<\/p>\n \u201cExtremely Inappropriate!\u201d compares the Showa<\/a> era, which stretched from 1926 to 1989, the reign of Japan\u2019s wartime emperor, Hirohito<\/a>, to the current era, which is known as Reiwa<\/a> and began in 2019, when the current emperor, Naruhito, took the throne<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Both the writer and executive producer are 50-something Generation Xers whose nostalgia for the more freewheeling bubble years of their youth permeates the ditsy comedic drama, whose characters occasionally break into madcap musical numbers.<\/p>\n Not so subtly, the show also comments on the evolution toward more inclusive and accommodating offices, caricaturing them as places where work is left undone because of strict overtime rules and employees apologize repeatedly for running afoul of \u201ccompliance rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Such portrayals strike a chord in Japan, where there have been complaints, often expressed on social media, about \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d being used as a \u201cclub\u201d to restrict expression or to water down television programs or films. Part of what fans have found refreshing about \u201cExtremely Inappropriate!\u201d is how unrestrained the portions set in the Showa era are.<\/p>\n While critics have called the series retrograde, some younger viewers say the show has made them question social norms they once took for granted \u2014 and wonder about what has been lost.<\/p>\n Writing for an entertainment-oriented Web publication, Rio Otozuki, 25, said that the series \u201cmust have left many viewers thinking inwardly that the Showa era was more fun.\u201d<\/p>\n She was initially shocked by some of the 1980s behavior it depicted, she wrote. In an interview, Ms. Otozuki said she was glad not to have grown up in the earlier era after seeing sexual harassment and extreme disciplinary measures portrayed as \u201cso normal back then.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But she also wondered if people then felt more empowered to make their own choices. She pointed to a television variety program depicted in the show, where young women cavort in skimpy outfits and compete to let their nipples slip out of their shirts, while a male host crawls between their legs making sexually suggestive comments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At first, Ms. Otozuki recoiled from it. In the end, though, she decided that if the stars \u201crealized that their bodies are their tools and wanted to use them for entertainment,\u201d then she could accept the variety show\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n Kaori Shoji, an arts critic who was a teenager in the 1980s, said she loved \u201cExtremely Inappropriate!\u201d She particularly appreciated how the series illuminated the chilling effects of today\u2019s tighter policing of workplaces.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone is just playing a game to see who can be the least offensive person that ever walked the earth,\u201d Ms. Shoji said. \u201cEveryone just exchanges platitudes and inanities because they are afraid to say anything. Surely that cannot be good for a workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n