The Shrine

Back in 1998 Japanese TV producers held an audition for a new show. A comedian named Nasubi (Japanese for eggplant) “won” the audition and was blindfolded and brought to a one room apartment somewhere in Tokyo. The apartment was stocked with a stack of magazines and a pile of postcards. Nasubi was told to strip naked and left with a cushion, a table, a small radio, a telephone, and some notebooks pens. He had no food.

Nasubi was told that in order to escape his prison he had to win a million Yen ($10,000) in prizes via magazine mail-in contests. This was also the only way he could eat- his first two weeks were without calories until he won some jelly in a contest (what kind of contest prize is jelly?).

Nasubi soon won a 5kg bag of rice but didn’t have anything to cook it with. He worked up a prison style cooking method using a cup of water and rice placed on the heater. He also won a TV set but didn’t have a cable or antennae. When he finally won a VCR the only videos he had were an exercise and cycling video.

The guy was locked away for 15 months all by himself, forced into a starvation diet, and had his entire ordeal broadcast on TV and the internet. His diary became a best seller on the outside world.

At the end of his show Nasubi was placed in yet another small enclosed space, where out of force of habit he took off his clothes. Imagine the mindfuck he went through when the walls fell away and he found himself in front of a large studio audience, where he was finally told the details of what had happened to him over the past year and 3 monthse.

http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/nasubi.html

By Christ, what is WRONG with Japan? I read that whole friggin' article, it's the craziest shit I ever seen. Poor fuckin' guy.

Ahhhh, I love the Japanese.

I'm still laughing about this, though I shouldn't be. Poor guy.

I do absolutely love Japan as a people and a culture (since they more or less shaped my childhood with lovely videogames), but if any of you are ever over in Japan and get approached by TV producers, I would run like hell. The concept of legal protections for show contestants does not exist in that country, as Nasubi's tale shows. I think we've all heard enough of these stories now to know that, though this is admittedly more extreme than most by far.

If the Japanese ever drift back into torture policy and find themselves their own Guantanamo Bay, you mark my words, it will be for some kind of reality TV show, and the suffering will be broadcast nationally to a rapt and appreciative audience.