Japan’s Most Evil Game Show - Susunu! Denpa Shōnen

Nasubi receiving dog food│Hulu

The late 1990s saw a surge in Japanese reality television, a genre notorious for pushing participants through bizarre, extreme challenges that teetered on the edge of psychological and physical endurance. Amidst funny, harmless, and cringy shows like Sasuke and Tokyo Friend Park 2, emerged a show that would later be recognized as one of the most ethically questionable reality TV experiments in world history: Susunu! Denpa Shonen. The segment of the show titled A Life of Prizes catapulted a young, struggling comedian, Tomoaki Hamatsu—nicknamed Nasubi, meaning eggplant for his elongated face and facial expressions—into overnight infamy.

Susunu Denpa Shonen subjected Nasubi to nearly 15 months of isolation and deprivation, pushing the boundaries of reality television into ethically murky, often outright disturbing territory. Today, Susunu Denpa Shonen and the Nasubi Experiment is regarded as a cultural case study in the dark side of reality television, exploring the lengths to which media can manipulate its participants and audience for the sake of entertainment.

We take a deeper look into the gritty world of one of the most extreme reality TV experiments ever attempted. 

In this article

• The Hopeful Comedian

• Life in Isolation

• The Role of the Audience and Producers

• Nasubi’s Way to Freedom

• Japan’s Fascination with Extreme Television

• Consent, Awareness, and the Limits of Reality TV

• The Legacy of Nasubi

• The Price of Fame in Reality Television’s Darkest Corners

The Hopeful Comedian

In January 1998, Tomoaki Hamatsu, then an unknown comedian seeking a breakthrough with no initial understanding of the scope of his confinement, signed up for what he thought was a routine, albeit unusual, televised challenge.

The objective seemed deceptively simple: to survive in a small, bare room, completely isolated, using only the items he could win through magazine sweepstakes. Upon entering the room, Nasubi had to strip naked, and if he were lucky, one of the prizes would be a clothing item. Spoiler: Nasubi didn’t get lucky. With nothing but water and a burner stove to start, he would earn his food, clothes, and basic necessities by submitting contest entries. However, the show quickly spiraled beyond the boundaries of a standard game show.

Unlike typical game shows where contestants knowingly compete on camera, Nasubi was unaware that his ordeal was broadcasted to millions of viewers on Nippon TV, and eventually streamed online 24/7. According to Nasubi, he believed he was simply being recorded for later editing into a television special; the producers intentionally hid the fact that his experiences would become a near-instant phenomenon across Japan, viewed by up to 17 million people weekly.

The original aim was for Nasubi to reach a target of one million yen in prizes—equivalent to around $8,000 at the time—an amount that the show’s producers assured him would secure his release. But the task proved far more difficult than he had anticipated. Nasubi entered sweepstake contests tirelessly, applying for thousands of prizes over months, only to win items often bizarre or useless in his situation, like a tent too large to unfold in his room or a bicycle without any space to ride.

His deprivation was immense, living on scarce winnings like bags of rice or cans of dog food he couldn’t open without a tool. For days, he managed to survive on just fiber jelly. These circumstances forced Nasubi into severe physical and mental strain.

Life in Isolation

What sets Susunu Denpa Shonen apart in the annals of reality TV is the intentional manipulation, torture, and neglect Nasubi experienced, which raised ethical concerns even as the show became more popular. For fifteen months, Nasubi endured a stripped-down existence in a room devoid of comfort or connection, far removed from normal society. As Nasubi’s endurance was tested, the producers went to significant lengths to orchestrate dramatic tension for their audience. Nasubi knew the door was open, and that he could leave if he wanted to. However, being under the assumption that he wasn’t being televised, Nasubi persisted to reach his goals, and desperately fulfill his dream of becoming a famous comedian.

The first days of the show passed without any prizes being won, and Nasubi was in the room totally naked, without any source of food. Only a single futon, a gas burner, and a stack of magazines accompanied him, forcing him to repeatedly apply to contests for the chance to win anything that would aid in his survival. Every prize won was a gamble, with many of his “winnings” providing little to no value to his immediate survival. Nasubi’s journey became an absurdist reflection on human adaptability, as he often received items irrelevant to his immediate needs—like a bicycle, vacuum cleaner, and women’s underwear—instead of food or adequate clothing. 

After six days, he won some fiber jelly and a couple of kilograms of rice. However, there was no rice cooker present in the room, pushing Nasubi to create a makeshift cooker with an empty drink carton. It’s only after winning a ton of pity prizes, that Nasubi receives a small vacuum cleaner to vacuum the room he has been sleeping in for over three months. When his first batch of rice runs out, Nasubi wins cans of dog food on which he has to survive for weeks. His first piece of clothing? A tiny women’s g-string. His second piece of clothing? Shoes. All Nasubi has to cover himself is a zabuton cushion. But, being under the assumption that the footage isn’t being televised, Nasubi roams freely naked through the room all the time.

Tomoaki receiving his first batch of dog food│Hulu

At one point, when viewers speculated on Nasubi’s precise location, they forcibly relocated him to an identical room under the pretense that a change in environment would bring him “better luck.” They repeated this relocation multiple times, isolating Nasubi further and stripping him of any semblance of normalcy.

Over time, Nasubi’s initial humor and excitement waned, replaced by a deep, visible desolation that was both compelling and heartbreaking for viewers to witness. His situation mimicked psychological torture. He displayed signs of social detachment, becoming visibly affected by the isolation and deprivation, often laughing or speaking to himself for comfort. Psychologists have identified this behavior as symptomatic of intense, prolonged isolation, where individuals may show “depersonalization” as a coping mechanism. Upon winning a white stuffed animal seal, which he names Bi-nasu, Nasubi eerily begins parading through the room with the stuffed animal on a lease as if walking a dog, while singing “you are Nasubi’s friend, Bi-nasu, let’s go for a walk.”

The Role of the Audience and Producers

Initially, A Life of Prizes was broadcast in edited 10-minute segments once a week. However, due to the show’s popularity and growing fascination with Nasubi’s plight, Nippon Television decided to provide a 24/7 live stream of Nasubi’s room. This decision underscored a darker aspect of the production: it treated Nasubi not as a person but as an object to be observed, a subject in an experiment that continually pushed the boundaries of decency and personal privacy. Producers even censored his nudity with a virtual eggplant in real-time, manually adjusting the stream to block parts of his body.

This sense of Truman Show-esque surveillance was compounded by the fact that Nasubi still didn’t know he was being broadcast live. His belief was that he was part of a typical reality show where his journey would be shared only after completion. He unknowingly became Japan’s most watched television figure, with an estimated viewership of 17 million tuning in to watch his every moment of psychological suffering.

Nasubi in his room│Hulu

Nasubi’s Way to Freedom

After 335 days of grueling endurance, Nasubi finally met his initial goal of winning 1 million yen in prizes. However, rather than granting him freedom, the producers decided to prolong the spectacle. They transported him to Korea, where he first got to enjoy his freedom and lavish meals, before he was placed in a similar room and tasked with winning enough prizes to secure a plane ticket back to Japan, all of this he had to do in Korean, which Nasubi didn’t speak or write.

Having endured nearly a year of isolation, Nasubi found himself in a foreign country, still stripped of his autonomy and subjected to the same rigorous contest. Again, Nasubi could have said ‘no’, but still was kept in the dark about the true entertainment hit he had become on national television. While the producers presented this new challenge as a reward, it felt more like an extension of his torment. 

As Nasubi’s time on Susunu Denpa Shonen dragged on, the show worked towards the ultimate reveal. After nearly 15 months of physical and psychological torture, the producers orchestrated a dramatic climax. On the day of his revelation, Nasubi was placed in a room identical to the ones he had been living in for over a year. Only this one was placed on the stage of a television studio. 

When the reveal finally arrived, the walls of Nasubi’s room fell down, exposing a naked, broken man sitting on the stage of a television studio filled with hundreds of people simultaneously applauding and laughing at him. As two TV presenters approached the stunned Nasubi, he simply asked, “Why are they laughing?”

Japan’s Fascination with Extreme Television

Japan’s reality TV history has long been noted for its boundary-pushing content. Shows like Takeshi’s Castle and Za Gaman have been pushing contestants through grueling physical or endurance tests that entertained viewers by putting people in outlandish or painful situations. In a society where group harmony and respect for authority are culturally valued, reality TV offered an outlet for taboo forms of cathartic entertainment, with shows tapping into themes of resilience, humiliation, and sacrifice. This cultural context helps explain how Susunu Denpa Shonen became such a phenomenon, but it also underlines the ethical questions that viewers and critics began raising.

In many ways, Susunu Denpa Shonen intensified the “humiliation entertainment” trend, positioning Nasubi’s suffering as a form of “comedy.” The producers even added sound effects to cue laughter during the broadcast, inviting the audience to treat Nasubi’s anguish as humorous. The dissonance here between suffering and laughter struck a chord in Japan, both as dark comedy and as a troubling new development in the relationship between media and morality. While the Japanese Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization received complaints, legal action against such programming was almost nonexistent, as Japan had relatively lenient broadcast regulations at the time.

Consent, Awareness, and the Limits of Reality TV

One of the most alarming aspects of the show is that Nasubi had no knowledge that he was being live-streamed to millions, while producers like Toshio Tsuchiya had the freedom to torment and exploit an individual for financial gain without facing any consequences. In an interview years later, Nasubi revealed that he was never made aware that his journey was televised, assuming that only the producers would view the footage until post-production. His consent was, at best, ambiguous, as he was misled about the conditions and the reach of the broadcast.

Informed consent requires that participants understand the scope, nature, and potential impact of the broadcast. Yet, Nasubi’s isolation and forced deprivation didn’t just blur these ethical lines, but outright crossed them, as he was not only deprived of his agency but also his right to control the extent of his public exposure. Nasubi himself has drawn the comparison with The Truman show in interviews. “I feel like I am Truman, but Truman’s life was easy compared to what I experienced.”

Nasubi’s experience reflects the consequences of prioritizing ratings and profit over human welfare. The Japanese concept of gaman—persevering through hardship with patience and endurance—also complicates the ethical analysis. While gaman is admired in Japan, there are boundaries that television should not cross, particularly when viewers are invited to derive amusement from real human suffering. Nasubi’s case demonstrates the dangers of mistaking entertainment for social experimentation, where the line between participant and victim becomes blurred.

Nasubi winning a toothbrush and toothpaste after three months│Hulu

The Legacy of Nasubi

Nasubi’s life after Susunu Denpa Shonen offers insight into the long-term impacts of his traumatic experience. He gained significant fame in Japan following the show, yet he struggled with the psychological effects of his isolation. Nasubi has spoken about his difficulty re-adjusting to society, noting that simple social interactions felt foreign and even frightening after nearly a year and a half alone. The reality of returning to society after such an ordeal, stripped of privacy and personal boundaries, is something that few, if any, can fully comprehend. 

Additionally, he had grown accustomed to nudity, as he was forced to live naked during the experiment. Even now, Nasubi speaks of his time on the show with a mix of disbelief and acceptance, as though it was an ordeal to be overcome and a sacrifice made in the name of fame.

Throughout the years, Nasubi has found immense strength and support in his family, as well as from the online community, which has recognized his struggle and supported his healing journey. In 2023, Nasubi’s story was documented in the documentary The Contestant.

In a wholesome turn of events, Nasubi has attempted to reshape his experience into something positive, working to help others manage social isolation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he became an advocate for mental health and resilience, using his experience to offer advice to those grappling with quarantine-induced loneliness.

But it doesn’t stop there, as Nasubi has also pushed his physique to the limits when he attempted to climb Mt. Everest four times. In his own words “The show didn't really influence me to climb Everest, but before I made the summit, I failed three times. During the difficult process of attempting the summit, my experience on Denpa Shōnen may actually have helped prepare me to endure the extreme environment and temperatures on the mountain (it got down to -30-40 C). As far as motivation, in 2011 the East Japan earthquake devastated Fukushima, and I wanted to draw awareness on an International stage to the tragedy by climbing Everest.”

When he signed up, Nasubi had no way of knowing that he would be deprived of basic human needs like clothing, communication, and normal food for more than a year, let alone that every aspect of his isolation would be live-streamed to millions. Yet, through his experience, and the support of the people closest around him, Nasubi has found ways to reclaim his personality, dignity and pride.

Nasubi receiving 10kg of rice after surviving on dog food│Hulu

The Price of Fame in Reality Television’s Darkest Corners

Susunu Denpa Shonen and the story of Nasubi reveal the ethical challenges that arise when human lives are commodified for entertainment. Tomoaki Hamatsu’s experience serves as a cautionary tale about the psychological costs of such extreme, exploitative programming. The show blurred ethical boundaries, from its lack of informed consent to its calculated manipulation of Nasubi’s suffering. The fact that the program was canceled in 2002 after public criticism indicates a shift in awareness around the ethics of reality television, yet similar controversies continue globally as networks push the boundaries of human endurance and suffering for profit.

In reflecting on Susunu Denpa Shonen, it becomes clear that the experiment’s legacy is twofold: it was both a cultural phenomenon that captivated millions and a warning of the moral hazards in the entertainment industry. Today, as reality TV continues to evolve, Hamatsu’s story remains a critical touchpoint for discussions around the ethics of content creation, the psychological effects of media exposure, and the protections that should be afforded to all participants, regardless of the format.

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