Nasubi spent 15 months naked and starving on Japanese reality TV, unaware that millions were watching his every move and reading his private diary.
Tomoaki Hamatsu entered a television audition hoping it might launch his comedy career. Instead, he was blindfolded, driven to an unknown apartment and told to remove every piece of clothing he was wearing.
Hamatsu—better known as Nasubi—would have to survive entirely on prizes won through magazine sweepstakes. The challenge would end once those winnings were valued at one million yen.
He knew a camera was recording him. What he did not know was that his hunger, loneliness and naked body had already become entertainment for more than 15 million people every week.
An Audition With No Script
Nasubi was a 22-year-old aspiring comedian when he auditioned for the Japanese variety program Susunu! Denpa Shōnen in January 1998. After winning a mysterious “show-business job,” producer Toshio Tsuchiya took him to a nearly empty room containing magazines, postcards and little else.
Nasubi was ordered to strip and enter mail-in competitions for everything he needed. A telephone allowed him to quit, but he was a broke young performer desperate for an opportunity and had not been told what the production actually intended to do with him.
He understood that the experiment was being filmed and might eventually appear on television. Producers encouraged him to believe that much of the footage would probably never air. In reality, viewers were already watching.
Waiting for Dinner to Arrive in the Mail
Until Nasubi won something edible, the production team quietly supplied a few crackers to prevent a medical emergency. After prizes began arriving, he was left to survive on whatever appeared at the door.
Nasubi completed hundreds of postcards every day. A bag of rice arrived without proper cookware, while sugary drinks and nutritional jelly offered calories but little real nourishment. At one point, dog food became one of his only available meals.
His celebrations whenever a package arrived were genuine, but editors surrounded them with playful graphics and sound effects. His genitals were hidden behind a cartoon eggplant—a reference to his nickname—and his declining health became a recurring comedy segment called A Life in Prizes.
The show attracted more than 15 million weekly viewers at its peak. Nasubi remained unaware of his fame because he had no access to news or outside communication. Even the diary he believed was private was published during his isolation and became a bestseller.
Winning Only Unlocked Another Room
After 335 days, Nasubi finally accumulated one million yen in prizes. Producers returned his clothes, blindfolded him and flew him to South Korea under the pretense of celebrating his victory.
Following a brief taste of freedom and proper food, he was taken to another apartment and told to undress again. This time, he had to win enough prizes to pay for a flight back to Japan. When he reached the initial target too quickly, the production raised it to a more expensive ticket.
Nasubi nearly refused to continue, but Tsuchiya persuaded him to stay. After almost a year of isolation, he had become psychologically dependent on the program’s structure: complete the postcards, reach the number and hope the next finish line would be real.
The Celebrity Reveal From Hell
Roughly 15 months after the audition, Nasubi returned to Japan and was placed inside another apparent room. He was told to remove his clothes once more. Then the walls suddenly collapsed, revealing a cheering studio audience.
It was the first time Nasubi understood that millions of people knew him. His victory became one final humiliation as he stood naked, trying to comprehend why an entire crowd recognized his face.
Normal life brought its own difficulties. Nasubi struggled with clothing, conversation and the suspicion that people saw him as a television curiosity rather than a person. Although the show gave him a career, it also damaged his ability to trust others.
Following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, he devoted himself to relief and awareness work, eventually reaching the summit of Mount Everest in 2016. The documentary The Contestant later revisited his ordeal without the cartoon graphics that once disguised its cruelty: a man sitting alone, waiting for the mail while millions watched a life he never knowingly agreed to share.