Chief Arino! Thank you for being so awesome ❤

Over the last few weeks I’ve been taking in as many episodes of GameCenter CX as humanly possible.

The show, Produced Fuji Television, is hosted by comedian Shinya Arino who brings watchers through, sometimes unsuccessfully, a video game from start to end.

Arino just has this perfect combination of dry wit and actual excitement as he plays that makes him a great host. He also has a great supporting cast of assistant directors who cheer him on through tough games.

But what really makes the show great is its variety.

While it focuses a lot on him playing, and failing most of the time, the games it also has him running to game centres (arcades) all around Japan, reading fan mail, and even getting the help of fans during some play throughs over the phone.

He even has a chance to speak to some video game developers including this clip from an interview he had with the late Satoru Iwata about Balloon Fight. He even took on Shigeru Miyamoto in playing Mario Maker just this past April

And it’s all helped by Arino just being a likeable person at heart. Although it’s a bit of a faux pas to say he’s a child at heart, it really is a bit of an apt description of what makes him such a genuine host.

There are more episodes than I expected, so I narrowed it down and picked out a few that you might want to give a watch.

Legend of Zelda Link to the Past

Mario 64

Doraemon

Comix Zone

Tokimeki Memorial (My favourite episode)