The Contestant

If you put what we're about to show you in a movie,

I doubt anybody would believe it.

Centers on a man trying to win his way out of a tiny apartment.

Surviving just on the prizes from magazine sweepstakes.

It's the hit of the season.

Every week, more than 30 million people tune in

to watch some young hopeful enjoy intense hardship.

Japan's latest human experiment in popular television.

The producers say, he doesn't even know he's on television.

He could leave at any time. The door isn't locked.

His delight at winning is apparently genuine.

Even if it's dog food or something inedible.

We're trying to show the most basic primitive form of human being.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

The show has become hugely popular.

It's a show dedicated to putting young people through endurance tests.

In the late 1990s,

I was the BBC Tokyo correspondent.

It just so happened that the BBC bureau was in the same building

as the production company

that was making Denpa Shonen.

So it was kind of in the air, the success of this program.

And all my Japanese colleagues were watching it.

Whenever the producer Tsuchiya came into the room,

you knew something big was gonna happen.

It was a show where unknown people...

...could make their name and become celebrities practically overnight.

It was astonishing.

Prize competitions.

People pin all their hopes and dreams

on just one postcard.

But whether you win or lose

is in the lap of the gods.

Now at the end of the 20th century,

for the first time in human history,

a man will attempt to live on competition prizes alone!

It's a snowy day in Tokyo

January 1998

somewhere in the city...

What does Tsuchiya the producer say to these expectant participants?

Luck?

And then...

A lottery box is wheeled in.

Meticulous preparations have been made for this audition.

But for these young hopefuls, it is still shrouded in mystery.

Who is this lucky very man?

Nasubi!

And this guy's face is...

long!

He's excited, shocked, and happy to have drawn the winning ticket.

Woo!

He thinks he's used up all his luck.

He has no clue that luck is the key to this challenge.

Oh!

Susunu! Denpa Shonen Challenge Number 1

will be...

Denpa Shonen A Life in Prizes.

At the time when there were all these competitions in magazines,

usually, all it consisted of was sending in

a postcard with your name and address on.

Whether you would win or not was in the hands of the gods.

Let's recap, there's a room

and inside the room, a table,

a pile of new postcards, a ballpoint pen,

a telephone, a radio, a floor cushion, an air conditioner

and lots of the latest issues of magazines.

The challenge is to see whether someone can survive on competition prizes alone.

Nasubi starts totally naked.

Using magazine and radio competitions,

he will diligently apply for prizes by postcard and phone.

As Nasubi's wealth grows and the room fills with prizes,

this program will bring you weekly progress reports.

The ultimate goal is to win prizes worth a total monetary value

of 1 million yen.

Only then will Nasubi's challenge come to an end.

A life in prizes! Go!

A diary!

"I have had to embark on this ludicrously absurd project

"and they have made me go naked.

But I'll just have to try to find enjoyment in everyday."

He enjoys himself.

Nasubi was completely naked so they had to cover up his genitalia

with something.

They started with a big black dot.

But Nasubi's name means eggplant

so they quickly switched that out for an emoji in the shape of an eggplant.

Which, as years have gone by, has now become

completely current parlance in emoji for penis.

So th-that's probably where it all started.

A total of 963 applications

and he has won...

nothing!

"My head is full of thoughts of food.

"It doesn't matter what,

"but please let me win something.

I'm begging you."

Nasubi is intently writing his application postcards.

And then...

Hai?

"I've done it! I've won something."

Hey.

"Oh, that's cruel!

The gods and fate are too cruel!"

Hai?

What has he won?

"It is 12 cartons of fiber jelly made by Kibun food Chemifa."

Could it be rice?

It's rice!

Nasubi has noticed something.

"I don't have a saucepan.

"I've put some rice in the used fiber jelly container.

"As an experiment I've soaked it

"in hot water from the tap to see what happens.

"If I leave it overnight,

I just hope something will have happened by the morning."

Well, was the experiment a success?!

"Disgusting..."

Next day...

"I put the rice I'd soaked in hot water near the gas ring

to see whether being next to the heat would have an effect."

Three hours later.

And what's the result of this experiment?

Oh!

Oh. Mm.

Mm.

Whoa!

Success!

"Once again, the gods have lent Nasubi a helping hand!"

"Normally my thoughts are how to survive this ordeal.

"And I don't have enough nutrition going to my brain to think of anything else.

"But recently my thoughts keep wandering to the outside world.

"Scenes of what it was like to be an ordinary person.

"The smiling faces of my family.

"It hurts my heart to think of my parents back in the countryside.

"I'm worried that my mom is shedding tears.

Worrying about her shabby, naked, idiotic son."

Nasubi does this week's winning dance with sake.

Ooh, ooh, ooh!

You just were rooting for him.

You were rooting for him to, to make it to the end.

Nasubi. Nasubi. Nasubi. Nasubi...

Nasubi. Nasubi.

It's sake!

Boiled beans,

chocolate,

a Pokémon desk mat.

"Esteemed rice, are you really going to abandon me?"

He's going to eat it!

Then...

But...

"Disgusting..."

And then...

A miracle has happened.

I'm proud of all the loot I've acquired

sitting behind me.

I concentrate on writing postcards as if my life depends on it.

I see the shadowy figures of people outside my window.

And hear the murmur of voices.

I'm lonely.

I feel like I want to cry, I'm so miserable.

Being alienated from human contact for this long,

makes you absolutely long for human warmth.

Nasubi. Nasubi. Nasubi...

...Nasubi. Nasubi. Nasubi...

A globe.

A face pack.

Shoes.

This week's winning dance.

"The excitement of holding one in my hand

was like holding the petal of a forbidden flower."

"As I opened my mouth wide and placed the potato chip inside,

"I lost all awareness of that moment.

"It was as if something in my body had been released

and flown away."

Denpa Shonen had a pretty good audience

but this segment was totally different than anything they had done before.

And people started talking about it, and it gradually grew and grew.

And it became this sensation.

And it was one of the most successful and popular shows in Japan at the time.

Reality TV was not yet a thing.

The Truman Show which was that same sort of concept,

didn't come out till later the same year.

And Big Brother was a couple of years in the future.

Japanese television has always been famous for its extreme programs

in which participants undergo some very unusual acts of endurance.

Well now the most popular program has come up with a really bizarre feature.

He has no food and he only wears clothes

when he's won enough competitions to earn them.

I'm cold.

Another televised moment in the life of Nasubi.

It's all part of a new phenomenon which is called webcam.