| Genre: | Talk show, variety, comedy |
| Director: | Rinzo Kaji |
| Narrated: | Kenji Satō |
| Opentheme: | Pete Shelley, "Telephone Operator" |
| Endtheme: | The Knack, "My Sharona" |
| Country: | Japan |
| Language: | Japanese |
| Producer: | Kenji Kojima, Midori Abiko, Rinzo Kaji |
| Runtime: | 60 minutes |
| Company: | TV Asahi |
| Channel: | TV Asahi |
| Last Aired: | present |
, formerly, is a Japanese comedy focused variety and talk television show hosted by Toru Hotoharu of Ameagari Kesshitai on TV Asahi.[1]
Ametalk is a talk show that has a focused topic for each episode and invites guests, usually comedians, who are relevant to the topic to discuss or share their stories in a light-hearted and often comedic atmosphere.[2]
The show first began in 2002 as a special and became a weekly variety show in 2003 as Ameagari Kesshitai's first major national program. It is currently still airing with high viewership ratings since the show began its broadcast.[3]
In June 2019, one of the MCs of the show, Hiroyuki Miyasako, was suspended by Yoshimoto Kogyo for affiliation with an anti-social organization back in 2014 alongside 10 other comedians.[4] Since then, all episodes with recordings containing Miyasako after the date of the news have been broadcast after editing Miyasako out completely. He is also removed as the MC in future episodes as Hotoharu will remain the MC with other supporting MCs every week.
The show's regular format has the two hosts from Ameagari Kesshitai, Hiroyuki Miyasako and Tōru Hotohara (As of June, 2019, Miyasako is no longer the MC of the show) alongside one or two other panelists, usually comedians or tarento on the left side of the stage and around 5 to 10 guests that will be the main speakers on the topic at hand sitting in two rows on the right side of the stage. Each of the guests will then proceed to share their stories and episodes relating to the topic of the episode, usually one at a time, inciting responses and banter from the hosts, the panelists and the other guests.[5]
The topic of each episode is sometimes determined by taking suggestions and recommendations from the viewers on Ametalk's official website.[6]
Other than Ameagari Kesshitai, the panelists and guests that appear on the show are usually comedians, tarento, athletes, actors, idols, models, TV announcers and more. Each episode features a topic that the guests are relevant to or share a commonality to, and can be general or specific.[7]
Mashin Sentai Kiramager did their version of the show known as Kira Talk! with the Kiramai Stones, which aired on May 31 and June 7 as a replacement to its regular episodes due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. The two-week special covered their past adventures with their Kiramager partners as well as their battles against the Jamenshi.[8]