I totally forgot about Nasubi until this reminded me of the funny naked man with just a room and a video camera who had to write postcard after postcard to magazine giveaways in order to win food and provisions. Everyone in Japan watched him goof off, starve, and get random shit like celebrity calendars and a giant yellow tent. Nippon Television held an audition, Nasubi won, and he voluntarily entered into this room with the goal of raising a million yen within a year in free stuff. He even had to win food in order to survive—he wasn't allowed to bring anything in.
I don't necessarily buy into the morally outraged position that this person takes on the issue, but here's a pretty good recap of the show in its entirety. Yes, it's true that there are a lot of extreme prank TV shows in Japan. But this doesn't just happen to random people. In N. America, we have a gazillion reality shows in which aspiring celebrities whore themselves out to pain and suffering for their minutes of fame. This guy got a year and a half. I'm sure the producers of the show had a close eye on him to make sure he didn't really starve or die or have an irreparable mental breakdown.
Like most japanese popular cultural phenomena, I am not sure if this is utterly brilliant or just fucked up beyond recognition. Possibly both.
Posted by: Peter | January 18, 2008 at 02:48 PM
I hope this guy was compensated for a lot more than the stuff he won in those contests. Those show producers got rich off his suffering. Ugh.
Posted by: enrique | January 18, 2008 at 06:08 PM
I loved nasubi!
Posted by: Barron | January 22, 2008 at 10:58 AM