The family, on Lisa's suggestion, visits a cyber café named The Java Server. However, when Homer looks at his bank account online, he is cyber-robbed by Snake, which saddens Marge because they were saving the money for their family vacation. When Ned Flanders catches Homer burgling his house to recover the lost money, he says that he got more for less by attending the Chuck Garabedian Mega-Savings Seminar. After considering Ned's advice, Homer steals Ned's tickets (and his Jesus fish fridge magnet), and the Simpsons attend the seminar, in which Chuck explains many money-saving strategies. Later, in order to save money, the family goes to a 33¢ store where Homer eats a can of plankton which contains red tide poisoning, as warned by “the Mexican Council of Food.” Then, when they snag mega-saver tickets from the Flanders family at the airport, they decide to go to Tokyo.
The Simpsons arrive in Japan and, although Lisa wants to explore Japanese culture, Homer prompts the family to eat at an American-themed restaurant named Americatown. Later on, Homer and Bart attend a sumo match. While there, Homer picks a fight with one of the sumo wrestlers. He and Bart knock him out, and the Emperor of Japan Akihito, comes to congratulate Homer. However, Homer thinks he is another wrestler and throws him into a dumpster of worn mawashi. As a result, he and Bart are put in jail, where they learn Japanese and explore its culture until Marge pays the bail. Consequently, the only money the family has left is a one-million yen bill, which Homer loses in the wind after he makes an origami crane from it (prompting him to say "D'oh!" in Japanese).
Now broke, the family goes to the U.S. Embassy, where the Ambassador suggests that they get jobs. They eventually find work in a fish-gutting factory in Osaka, but are dissatisfied, except for Bart who believes he has found his purpose in life. Then, they notice a TV game show called The Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show. They decide to appear on the show, telling the game's Japanese host Wink that what they wish for is plane tickets back to Springfield, but to get them they have to go through physical torture (particularly Homer). Eventually, the tickets are theirs, but they have to pick them up from a rickety bridge over an active volcano. Lisa is able to get the tickets, but the bridge breaks and the whole family falls into the volcano, which is actually only orangeade with lots of wasabi added. As the Simpsons leave Japan, their plane is confronted by Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera and Rodan, but Lisa goes to sleep and the monsters let the plane fly off on the journey back to America.
A scene from Battling Seizure Robots is played throughout the end credits.
Japanese Refferences;
When Marge says to Homer on the plane that he liked Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa, Homer claims he doesn't remember it that way. The underlying joke is that this famous film is about people remembering different things about the same event they witnessed.
A sign on the Japanese Royal Hotel says: "Now with 20 % more bowing. (See Customs and etiquette of Japan).
When Homer goes to the to
ilet, we see a picture with モスラ written on it. This is the Japanese name of Godzilla's enemy/ally Mothra. Later in the episode on a neon sign is the Japanese name of Godzilla as well.
The buildings Lisa sees out of the hotel window are the Imperial Gardens, the Meiji Shrine and the Hello Kitty factory, where the cats are heard screaming as they are being incinerated.
The fictional mecha anime Battling Seizure Robots is a reference to the infamous Pokémon episode Dennō Senshi Porygon (or, as known in the English translation of the title, "Electric Soldier Porygon"), which is known for having caused around 700 photosensitive epileptic seizures around 20 minutes into the episode. This event is also known as "Pokémon Shock" (ポケモンショック, Pokémon Shokku), and caused the episode to be banned worldwide. It also changed the laws for Japanese television broadcasting.
Homer and Bart tell Marge and Lisa that during their jail time they had to perform in a kabuki play called The 47 Ronin, followed by origami, flower arranging and meditation.
Other typical Japanese things like haiku, fusuma doors (which Homer keeps walking through instead of sliding them open), square watermelons, geishas, origami, sumo, Japanese gardens, Emperor Akihito, the tea ceremony, wasabi, torture reality game shows, and water spraying toilets (see Toilets in Japan) are referenced.
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