The Tale of Nasubi

Those living in Japan may remember a segment on the popular TV program Dempa Shonen called “Kensho Seikatsu” (“Sweepstakes Life”) in which a poor comedian named Nasubi was trapped naked in a room and forced to to win sweepstakes if he hoped to survive.

Or, maybe you don’t remember. For you, here is a great retelling of the saga of Nasubi, complete with screen captures and funny moments. Here’s a taste:


Nasubi on his first day
Nippon Television’s (NTV) producers have obviously never heard of the Geneva Convention. If they had, they wouldn’t have treated poor Nasubi the way they did. They wouldn’t have stripped him naked and shut him in an apartment, alone with no food, furniture, household goods, or entertainment. They wouldn’t have kept him there for over a year until he had won $10 000 in prizes by sending in postcards to contests. They wouldn’t have cut him off from the world and they would have told him that he was on nation-wide TV.

It all started one snowy day in January, 1998 with an audition. The audition consisted of choosing lots because the only talent needed for this challenge was luck. A group of aspiring comedians showed up, and among them was a young man whose stage name is Nasubi, which means eggplant. Nasubi was ‘lucky’ that day, and was chosen over other aspiring young comedians for a mysterious “show-business related job”. He was immediately blindfolded and driven to a tiny one room apartment somewhere in Tokyo.


Nasubi’s empty room
When he arrived at the apartment, he was shown a stand full of magazines, a huge pile of postcards, and told to strip naked. The room was empty except for a cushion, a table, a small radio, a telephone, some notebooks, and a few pens. There was not a crumb of food, a square of toilet paper, or any form of entertainment. Whatever he needed, he was to win by sending thousands of postcards into contests. The producers left and Nasubi was on his own in his unique survival challenge. Imagine what was going through his mind: How am I going to eat? Why are they doing this to me? How long will it take to get out of here? He must have thought he was in a bad episode of The Prisoner.

8 thoughts on “The Tale of Nasubi”

  1. I used to love that show. Thanks for posting and reminding me of it. One of my favorite episodes was the one where he won a live octopus, which was delivered to his room and much to his surprise.

  2. I really wanna see this show!
    Doubt anyone knows where you can download or buy it to watch? (*Would be uber grateful if someone knows and could tell me XD *)

  3. omfg i want to see it so badly!!11111
    gonna search for dvd’s on the net right now ^_^

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