'The Contestant' tells the bizarre story of a Japanese man who lived a real-life 'Truman Show'
In January 1998, an aspiring Japanese comedian named Tomoaki Hamatsu but better known as Nasubi — or "eggplant," because of his long face — was chosen to star in "Susunu! Denpa Shōnen," a hit variety show.
The brainchild of producer Toshio Tsuchiya, "Denpa Shōnen" featured young people competing in extreme challenges — think "Saturday Night Live" meets "Jackass." Nasubi was selected to take part in a segment called "A Life in Prizes," which was inspired by the magazine sweepstakes that were all the rage in Japan in the '90s.
But what should have been a triumphant breakthrough for the 22-year-old from Fukushima instead unfolded into one of the most bizarre and disturbing sagas in TV history — and is now the subject of a documentary, "The Contestant," directed by Clair Titley and premiering this week on Hulu.
Instead of being whisked off on a foreign adventure like other "Denpa Shōnen" contestants, Nasubi was taken to a tiny apartment furnished with a small table, a rack of magazines and a stack of blank postcards. There, he was forced to remove his clothes, and he used a strategically placed pillow to preserve his modesty on camera.
According to the rules of the challenge, devised
