Release and Reception
In its original American broadcast on May 16, 1999, "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" received an 8.0 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research, translating to approximately 8 million viewers. On May 23, 2005, the episode was released along with the season 12 episode "Simpson Safari", the season 13 episode "Blame It on Lisa" and the season 15 episode "The Regina Monologues", as part of a DVD set called The Simpsons - Around The World In 80 D'Oh's. On August 7, 2007, the episode was again released as part of The Simpsons - The Complete Tenth Season DVD box set. Matt Groening, Mike Scully, Donick Cary, George Meyer, Ron Hauge, Matt Selman and Jim Reardon participated in the DVD's audio commentary of the episode.
The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, gave the episode a positive review, and wrote that it was "A magnificent end to the season." They wrote that the episode was "Thoroughly racist," but "completely inoffensive because it's simply very funny." Jake MacNeill of Digital Entertainment News was also favourable, considering it to be one of the better episodes of the season. James Plath of DVD Town wrote that the episode has "some funny moments." Aaron Roxby of Collider was more critical, denouncing the episode's dated references. He wrote: "I am going to go ahead and give this one the benefit of the doubt and assume that making fun of Japanese junk culture and game shows felt fresher in 1999 than it does do now." Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide called the episode "mediocre." He wrote that, though the episode's concept should "open up lots of interesting possibilities," it "doesn’t explore them particularly well." While he didn't consider it to be a bad episode, he thought it "fail to live up to its potential."
Although all other episodes of The Simpsons have been dubbed and broadcast on Japanese television, "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" has never aired in Japan. The reasoning behind this was that a scene in the episode, which shows Homer throwing Akihito, the current emperor of Japan, into a box filled with sumo thongs, was considered disrespectful. The episode has become study material for sociology courses at University of California Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show", and to figure out what it is "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies". Some questions asked in the courses include:
• What aspects of American society are being addressed in the episode?
• What aspects of them are used to make the points?
• How is the satire conveyed: through language? drawing? music?
• Is the behavior of each character consistent with his/her character as developed over the years?
• Can we identify elements of the historical/political context that the writers are satirizing?
• What is the difference between satire and parody?
Read more about this topic: Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo
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