The main character of the reality show, Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed Nasubi, meaning eggplant, due to his particularly long face, was the subject of a documentary called Contestant in 2023, so that the Western world could finally discover the amazing story of the series. A Japanese man, who until then was known only in Japan and South Korea.
Photo: Nippon TV/Nippon TV
The TV show where no one cared about mental health
As a young up-and-coming comedian, Nasubi applied to participate in a mystery competition that predated Big Brother by a year, which was considered the predecessor of reality shows. Sosuno! The story of Denpa Shōnen began in January 1998, and its gist was that Tomoaki Hamatsu, chosen by the producers, was locked naked in a windowless apartment, where nothing but magazines and postcards awaited him.
Left alone, Nasubi was only given some crackers next to running water to keep him from hunger, but he also lacked basic necessities like toilet paper. In the competition, scheduled for 15 months, he only had access to items he won in promotions advertised in magazines and in postal raffles.
Big Brother and the real world are a playground compared to Japanese reality
The irony of the situation was that during the reality show, Tomoaki Hamatsu won a lot of items that he could not use at all in the apartment: a set of tires, a tent, golf balls or a teddy bear, as well as movie tickets. To the movie Spice World.
Photo: Nippon TV/Nippon TV
Meanwhile, she never won a dress, so she was naked throughout the reality show (her genitals were covered in an eggplant emoji), and several bags of rice as prizes only came when Nasubi was in extremely poor physical condition – before that, only sugary soft drinks He won the dog food, and practically lived on it.
People love cruelty
Perhaps the strangest detail of the experience is that the door to the apartment was not locked, which means that Nasubi could have left at any time. In the end, the “game” lasted 15 months.
Japanese and South Korean audiences have been fascinated by the reality show, with an average of 17 million viewers tuning in every Sunday. Sosuno! By Denpa Shōnen Nasubi became a big star overnight, and once even had to move after fans and journalists somehow located the original apartment and tried to contact her.
