Nasubi: The Real Life Truman Show

[00:00:02] Kyle Risi: Adam? Today in the compendium, I want you to imagine agreeing to be filmed for a television experiment with one important reassurance.

[00:00:10] Adam Cox: uhhuh.

[00:00:11] Kyle Risi: Nobody is actually gonna wanna watch that

the footage might become a programme later on once it has been edited, censored,

and of course made safe for television. because while Naus sat naked inside his bare apartment, entering hundreds of competitions just to win something to eat, producers were broadcasting him on television every single week.

Without telling him.

[00:00:38] Adam Cox: without telling him, 17 million people tuned in to watch him,

[00:00:45] Kyle Risi: Japan knew his face, but Na Subi still believed the cameras were just collecting footage that nobody might see.

And that lie lasted 448 days.

[00:01:25] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an Assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:34] Adam Cox: We explore strange true stories from the worlds of true crime, dark history, scandals, mysteries, and remarkable people.

[00:01:41] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reese, your ring master for today's episode.

[00:01:44] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the midwife for the dancing rat troupe

[00:01:49] Kyle Risi: that's a lot of babies.

[00:01:50] Adam Cox: Exactly. Rats make a lot of babies.

[00:01:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And then those babies marry each other and they have babies. And then eventually, I dunno, that's like math we can't even do,

[00:02:00] Adam Cox: I know. You, you know, you're marrying your, your cousin who's your mother, who's your uncle.

[00:02:03] Kyle Risi: Yeah. They are kind of, sort of a love the one you're with

[00:02:06] Adam Cox: I've been put in place to make sure that one, there's birth control and two, help that process along. 'cause there's a lot of rats.

[00:02:12] Kyle Risi: It sounds like the fact that you're in charge of birth control means that you're trying to kind of not create more work for yourself.

[00:02:17] Adam Cox: Well, um, you know, I've practising , safe sex and, um, you know, and also I might put on some music, light a candle, help the situation along a little bit.

[00:02:28] Kyle Risi: Oh, I see. Like the incestuous rat sex.

[00:02:33] Adam Cox: Hey, I've gotta keep the lights on and myself in a job.

[00:02:36] Kyle Risi: Fair enough. Yeah,

guys, if you enjoy the show and you wanna show us you like what we do, then please make sure to follow the compendium wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:02:46] Adam Cox: And while you're at it, leave us a cheeky review. 'cause it really helps other people find the show. It, you know, gets them to listen. It keeps the lights on.

[00:02:54] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[00:02:54] Adam Cox: We do like reading all the reviews too.

[00:02:56] Kyle Risi: And guys, don't forget, if you do want even more then Patreon is where you can get all of that. Because membership gets you seven days early, access with paid members. Also unlocking bonus episodes and our full back catalogue.

Of course, you also get that legendary key chain, as we always say, Adam.

[00:03:14] Adam Cox: We can always be there dangling near your crotch.

[00:03:17] Kyle Risi: That's right,

Adam. That's enough for the housekeeping because, today On the Compendium, we are diving into an assembly of laughter heard from the wrong side of the screen.

[00:03:27] Adam Cox: Okay?

[00:03:29] Kyle Risi: what are some of the biggest reality TV game shows that comes to mind?

[00:03:33] Adam Cox: Would you call Big Brother as a game

[00:03:34] Kyle Risi: show? I would say so, yes. I, that's what I had in mind when I wrote that.

[00:03:37] Adam Cox: You're there to win a prize at the end of the day.

[00:03:40] Kyle Risi: It's probably the biggest one, right? Yeah, the most obvious one.

[00:03:42] Adam Cox: Other reality TV show. The Love Island.

[00:03:44] Kyle Risi: Yeah,

[00:03:44] Adam Cox: kind of one, I guess

[00:03:45] Kyle Risi: it's very addictive though. Very addictive

[00:03:47] Adam Cox: traders.

[00:03:48] Kyle Risi: Oh God, yes. Is it reality though? I'd say that's more of a game show.

[00:03:52] Adam Cox: That's true actually.

[00:03:52] Kyle Risi: But there is a reality element to it, isn't it?

[00:03:54] Adam Cox: Yeah. Okay.

[00:03:55] Kyle Risi: Hmm. Have you ever fantasise about the concept of being a contestant on Big Brother?

[00:03:59] Adam Cox: I wasn't allowed to watch Big Brother to begin with.

[00:04:01] Kyle Risi: Were you not

[00:04:02] Adam Cox: I was only a kid when it first came out.

[00:04:04] Kyle Risi: What kind of religious fanatical family are you from? To be fair, when I was a kid, my mom was very good friends with a Seven Day Adventist lady, and, uh, she did not let her kids watch The Simpsons. And so for like a year, Simpsons were banned in our household.

[00:04:19] Adam Cox: For you. Just because of some family friend.

[00:04:23] Kyle Risi: It was literally the only show that I would record on BHS and like I had the Simpsons tape, and I recorded so many episodes of it that eventually it was just impossible to watch. I had to get a new one.

[00:04:33] Adam Cox: But Mom probably thought it was a porno tape.

[00:04:34] Kyle Risi: no. She knew. She knew because it said I'd written The Simpsons on, on the label

[00:04:38] Adam Cox: Decoy.

[00:04:38] Kyle Risi: Yes. She'll never get that. This is gay porn.

[00:04:44] Adam Cox: but back to your clue, no, I don't think I've ever fantasised about being on Big

[00:04:48] Kyle Risi: Brother. Oh my God. I used to dream about it all the time.

I would've totally applied. The only thing that stopped me from applying was the fact that I was so young at the time. if I had been, I would've definitely applied.

[00:04:57] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:04:58] Kyle Risi: But Adam, I want you to imagine that it is 1998. By this point, big Brother is still just a figment of someone's imagination.

In fact, this is a time in history where if somebody said the words reality tv, you probably wouldn't know what they were even talking about. But what you do know is that you want your big break on television.

You're a hopeful comedian looking to make your mark. And the game show Circuit has proven pretty effective for getting noticed.

So when you hear about auditions for a Japanese TV show looking for contestants, you decide to give it a shot. You, you, in the fantasy, are you in the imagination moment here?

[00:05:38] Adam Cox: Okay, I wanna make it big. And this could be my big break.

[00:05:42] Kyle Risi: That's right. Now you don't really know what you're signing up for. Only that you might get on television. At the audition, you are asked to pick a random card. You dunno what it means, but before you know it's Adam, you are blindfolded. You are bundled into the back of the van and driven to a secret location.

When the blindfold comes off, you find yourself inside a tiny apartment. It's entirely devoid of furniture. All that is around you is a small table, a couple of cameras, a bunch of magazines and postcards. And Adam, a single pen.

[00:06:15] Adam Cox: All right,

[00:06:17] Kyle Risi: Adam. There is no food. There is no toilet paper, and you have no real explanation for how long you are going to be there.

All you are told is congratulations. Adam Cox, you are our contestant. And the challenge is about to begin.

But before producers leave, they give you one final instruction. Take off all of your clothes. Are you still sticking around?

[00:06:42] Adam Cox: I'll be like, no, get me out of here. What the hell? It feels like squid games, but pervy.

[00:06:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It does feel very pervy, doesn't it?

Adam? Today in the compendium, I'm gonna tell you about the incredible story of NAI and his absolutely wild experience on a Japanese TV show called A Life of Prizes.

Have you heard of this story before?

[00:07:04] Adam Cox: I've never heard. I mean, I know that the Japanese do have some kind of crazy game shows. Yes.

But yeah, not this,

[00:07:12] Kyle Risi: Adam, this is a wild one.

This story really does come from the absolute wild west of the early days of reality tv and to make things even more chaotic, as you said, it's a Japanese TV show, a country that's already got a pretty formidable reputation for producing some of the most wonderfully unhinged television shows.

This show has actually been described as Japan's real life Truman show.

Because while Na Subi knew he was being filmed, he was led to believe that nobody would see the footage until the challenge was over.

And even then the footage would be edited down, censored, and potentially turned into a programme.

And I say potentially he believed this was just part of like a pitch or a concept for a potential new TV show.

[00:07:59] Adam Cox: Oh, I see. Yeah. 'cause I remember when I did my stint in tv, a long, long time ago.

I was involved of like a pitch meeting for a new game show. And like you, they bring in contestants and they kind of do like a dummy run to producers to pitch an idea to then get it sort of green lit.

Mm-hmm. So I imagine, yeah, he might have thought maybe that's what this is.

[00:08:19] Kyle Risi: Yes. And of course, if he does well, and it gets greenlit, he's gonna be in the forefront of the producer's minds for maybe being the official contestant.

[00:08:27] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:27] Kyle Risi: But Adam, that's not what was happening because from the very start now, Subi was being broadcast weekly to millions of people across Japan.

The show became so popular that producers started live streaming him 24 hours a day. and Na Subi had absolutely no idea this was happening.

And by the way, NA Subi was completely naked. So how do you even sensor nudity on a live stream?

[00:08:54] Adam Cox: I don't know. Is there something that can just latch onto your, your pubis.

[00:08:58] Kyle Risi: Your pubis? He has a full pubis. producers did later maintain that Na Subi was free to go whenever he wanted. His apartment was never locked.

[00:09:08] Adam Cox: Oh, really?

[00:09:09] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:10] Adam Cox: I thought he was gonna be locked in.

[00:09:11] Kyle Risi: But Adam, he had no clothes. He didn't know where he was, and he had no idea how long the challenge was supposed to last for as a hopeful comedian, desperate to break into the entertainment industry, he believed that walking away might mean throwing away an opportunity of a lifetime.

And so Adam, he kept going because for all he knew, it might end at any moment. Like what was just another few minutes. Do you know what I mean?

But Adam, a few minutes turned into a few weeks, which then turned into 15 months.

[00:09:42] Adam Cox: 15 months, yep. And he could have left any time.

[00:09:46] Kyle Risi: At any time.

[00:09:46] Adam Cox: And he chose to stay.

[00:09:47] Kyle Risi: He chose to stay.

[00:09:49] Adam Cox: I'm sorry, what?

[00:09:50] Kyle Risi: And so, Adam, today on the compendium, I'm gonna tell you about an unknown comedian who became the unwitting centre of one of the most extraordinary television experiments ever made.

We will find out what Na Subi was actually put through how far producers were willing to push him. Constantly moving the goalposts and what happened when the entertainment finally ended and Musubi had to live with the consequences.

Because what began as a bizarre Japanese game show became something far stranger and something so much more remarkable than I think anyone involved, including Musubi , could ever have predicted.

[00:10:30] Adam Cox: Okay. You've built this up into being quite an intriguing and fascinating story.

[00:10:35] Kyle Risi: That's such a coincidence. That's exactly what our show says on that. The 10,

[00:10:39] Adam Cox: they're not intriguing anymore. To be fair,

[00:10:41] Kyle Risi: you finally passed it. alright, so Adam, Let me introduce you to Nabi. His real name is actually Toma Ham Matsu,

[00:10:50] Adam Cox: but he goes by Nasbi.

[00:10:51] Kyle Risi: Yes. Now he was born in Fukushima in 1975, which makes him 51 years old this year. Now from a very young age, NAI really loved entertaining friends and family and his mission has always been to make them laugh.

And what is really sad is that this seems to be a bit of a defence mechanism for him.

He was always relentlessly bullied for having like a long face. Like I read that they measured it on television one time and it came in like 30 centimetres long.

[00:11:18] Adam Cox: So it's 30 centimetres.

[00:11:20] Kyle Risi: Yeah, his face was 30 centimetres. It's a very long, listen, it sounds long and I've seen pictures of it and it doesn't really look that unusual.

You've guys sort of gotta remember that he's also six foot and he's also lanky. So relatively speaking, yes, fine. He's got a long face, but he's in proportion, so it looks fine. Yeah. But the point is that kids can be absolutely brutal. And so in response, his humour does seem to be fairly deprecating at times. It's the sort of thing that Princess Diana often did. Like they were both the first to get in there with a joke about their insecurities. That way bullies, taunts somehow have less effects on them.

[00:11:54] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:11:55] Kyle Risi: But because of his long face throughout school, people called him nai, which is actually Japanese for the word eggplant, or in the UK Bergin.

Oh, now I'm actually gonna call him Na Subi throughout this episode, even though it was his childhood bullying taunt. And it's because when he becomes an adult, he decides he's gonna make it as a comedian and he actually adopts Na Subi as his stage name.

So he's sort of reappropriating the things that bullies used against him to taunt him and out of this his stage persona. And a big part of his identity was essentially born.

So we're gonna call him Na Subi 'cause that's what he goes by.

[00:12:33] Adam Cox: Sure. Can I ask, is he still a comedian?

[00:12:37] Kyle Risi: We will get into it. Okay. He's still very funny, man. That's something that just doesn't disappear. You know, if you're a funny guy like me, okay. You, you understand the struggle. You can't just turn it off.

[00:12:47] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's a real struggle.

[00:12:51] Kyle Risi: And so Adam, to establish himself as a comedian, his strategy was to get himself in the periphery of TV audiences across Japan in the hope that exposure would lead to him being discovered.

And so in January of 1998, NA Subi auditions to appear on a well-known TV show called Susu. No, den showed N

[00:13:09] Adam Cox: Oh yeah,

[00:13:10] Kyle Risi: yeah. Which translates to do not proceed. Crazy Youth.

[00:13:15] Adam Cox: I was with you into the crazy youth bit. Like they have to say. Is that like a cer edition of the show?

[00:13:22] Kyle Risi: No, it's just it. It's just what it's called.

[00:13:25] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:13:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's wildly popular amongst the younger TV audiences and is notorious for putting participants through some really extreme challenges.

[00:13:34] Adam Cox: Like what?

[00:13:34] Kyle Risi: So the challenges change every week. A good example of the type of things that they would do is they'll put contestants, usually other unknown comedians, also looking to break through into, an isolated room where every day they get to watch their favourite baseball team play a match.

At first, you don't actually get to see the comedian's face, it's centred out with an emoji or some kind of sensor kind of thing.

However, if their team wins, a small portion of the face is then revealed. But also if their team wins, they get to eat that night.

Now? If their team loses, they get no food and they are immediately plunged into total darkness until the next day's match.

[00:14:13] Adam Cox: And this is what comedians are doing to get no notoriety. In the uk, you like you tour, you do the circuits, you do some standup, but no, not in Japan.

[00:14:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. So the idea is that the more your team wins, the more satisfied your belly is and the more exposure you get on television.

And so Adam, these are the opportunities that Musubi is pursuing. But when Na Subi applies for the show, he doesn't know what the specific challenge will be.

All he knows is that he's probably gonna be put into some sort of extreme situational challenge.

[00:14:43] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:43] Kyle Risi: and while these shows are popular with the Japanese youth, adults often look at these formats with a bit of disdain. in particular, Nabis parents don't really approve, but they do accept it. Right. The only thing his mom asks is that whatever you do son, please just don't get naked on television.

[00:14:59] Adam Cox: Oh, the one thing,

[00:15:01] Kyle Risi: the one thing,

[00:15:02] Adam Cox: was it quite common then for people getting naked on tv?

[00:15:05] Kyle Risi: I think they have censorship laws.

[00:15:07] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:08] Kyle Risi: And so sure you can get naked, but like we've gotta cover that up.

[00:15:11] Adam Cox: Yeah. I guess it brings shame on the family.

[00:15:14] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Shame, mu shame.

[00:15:18] Adam Cox: I don't think that's,

[00:15:19] Kyle Risi: Hey, you don't know.

So of course Adam, as you can imagine straight away, there is an impending disappointment coming towards his family, right?

[00:15:27] Adam Cox: I mean, yeah.

[00:15:28] Kyle Risi: And so in January, 1998, NA Suvi arrives at the auditions. There are like 20 other people also auditioning. Even at this point. The cameras are rolling, which he assumes is just for some behind the scenes footage.

Now, during the audition, the participants are asked to take turns picking a card from a mystery box, like a lottery box.

They have no idea what the card means. However, Nabi, he draws a winning card and he immediately is told this is good news.

And so he is stoked from there, producers. They blindfold him, they deafen him with some headphones and they lead him to a minivan where he's then driven to a secret location somewhere in Tokyo.

When he takes off the blindfold. He's fully expecting this, of course, to be like some sort of studio as you would, instead, Adam. It is just an ordinary one bedroom apartment.

The only furniture in the room is a coffee table and a cushion. He has a phone in there. There's a stack of postcards, a single pen, but also a white wire magazine rack stacked with all the latest additions of all the latest mainstream magazines.

[00:16:30] Adam Cox: Okay. So the only reason he's been selected so far is because he drew the winning card?

that wasn't like planted or anything like that?

[00:16:37] Kyle Risi: No,

[00:16:38] Adam Cox: it was pretty random.

[00:16:39] Kyle Risi: Pure randomness? Yes.

[00:16:41] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:16:41] Kyle Risi: Then producer, Toa. We'll call him Toshio. He explains that he has been selected for the challenge, which is called a life of prizes, where starting with nothing.

he had to earn his way to 1 million yen in products and prizes by exclusively entering as many mail-in sweep state competitions from the magazines in the apartment that had been provided to him.

[00:17:05] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:17:06] Kyle Risi: And so Adam, if he wanted anything to make his time during the challenge, more comfortable, he was gonna have to win it.

This included Adam food, bedding, toiletries, any entertainment, literally anything he wanted.

Then as the producers are about to leave, they say, oh, one more thing. Take off all your clothes.

And at first he thinks, of course they're joking. He strips naked. And then producers take his clothes and they leave.

[00:17:31] Adam Cox: Does he have a shower? Can he clean himself? Does he have privacy to go to the toilet?

[00:17:36] Kyle Risi: He has some basic water. He has a toilet, but there's no amenities. There's no products.

[00:17:42] Adam Cox: Uhhuh

[00:17:43] Kyle Risi: just basic running water.

[00:17:44] Adam Cox: So he can have water, he can bathe to a point. Why are they taking his clothes? 'cause he has to now win clothes. And hang on, does he know that the game show has started yet?

[00:17:53] Kyle Risi: This is the thing, right? Because when you ask why did he strip naked, he is very reluctant at first, but it seems that a lot of his resignation comes from the belief that the producers weren't gonna screw him over, first of all, right?

Mm-hmm. Like Tosio is like a massive, well-respected producer. He doesn't think that he's gonna do anything to put him in harm's way or to scream over.

And like while he's told that they'll be recording him 24 hours a day. They were only really interested in the highlights. And once the challenge was over, that's when they'd go through everything, pick out the best bits and maybe, maybe turn it into a television programme.

[00:18:27] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:18:27] Kyle Risi: As for the nudity, obviously they'd censor that if they ever decided to broadcast it. Which they're unlikely to because this is for a potential pitch.

[00:18:35] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:18:36] Kyle Risi: So there is a lot of hypotheticals here but, what that does is reassure him because also if he does a good job and is funny and is entertaining, then maybe when they come to making the actual TV show, he'll be their guy potentially. So he also wants to impress him in that sense.

[00:18:53] Adam Cox: Yeah, but I'm surprised he would think that because normally, they want, people that haven't experienced or know what's coming. And so for someone that's doing the pilot or like the concept work

[00:19:03] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[00:19:04] Adam Cox: They would never bring him back anyway for that.

[00:19:05] Kyle Risi: Do you not think?

[00:19:06] Adam Cox: No, not for the real show.

[00:19:07] Kyle Risi: Oh, I guess so. Yeah.

[00:19:09] Adam Cox: So one, I wouldn't be doing this thing.

And number two he does so, but yeah. Has he signed a contract?

[00:19:16] Kyle Risi: No, this is the Wild West. Before contracts were even a thing

[00:19:20] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:19:21] Kyle Risi: What NAI doesn't know is that everything that he is been told is basically a lie.

And that the television show had already been approved every week. Producers would take all the footage from that week, they would cut it down to the best six minutes. And then they would broadcast out on a segment of that week's episode of Do Not Proceed Crazy Youth. And so the whole time Na Subi is carrying on under this belief that nobody was actually watching him.

They do censor his junk and to censor it, they actually use an eggplant emoji, which is because of course that is his name. Right? Like it's little nai. And actually in terms of internet law, this is how the eggplant became associated with Dick's. Really? Yeah. It's because they use this to censor his junk on this show in 1998, which makes sense, right?

Because like eggplants, they don't look like dicks anyway. They're not sexy.

Some people's maybe like the shape and the colour and has been especially hard day than the green frilly bit on the end. Like if you were gonna pick any emoji to represent a dick, there are so many better options. Right? Like a banana, for example. So it makes sense that the significance of the show would lead to that association and it did.

[00:20:29] Adam Cox: And purely because of his nickname.

[00:20:31] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:20:31] Adam Cox: No way.

[00:20:33] Kyle Risi: Isn't that amazing?

[00:20:34] Adam Cox: Wow. We can thank this poor guy for

[00:20:37] Kyle Risi: that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's only gonna get worse, Adam. This guy goes through the ringer.

So the show, NA Sobi six minute segment is broadcast on which is of course do not proceed. Crazy Youth is the brainchild of producer to, to, I'm just gonna call him Tochi from now on.

And his belief was, and remember this was before reality TV even existed, that if you put ordinary people into a ridiculous situation, give them a task and point a camera at them, they will inevitably become entertaining to watch, which is 100% accurate because it's literally that concept has given birth to our whole genre of new television, right?

And so within this framework, a Life app Prizes was born.

In the documentary that I watch while research. In this episode, they interview Toshi Adam. He is a piece of work. He's extraordinarily arrogant, like he really thinks he is hot shit. He says a life app Prizes was an aspect of humanity that only I on this show could capture.

And like that just oozes, just arrogance, doesn't it?

[00:21:37] Adam Cox: I mean, because this doesn't sound like a fun show. The fact that this guy is naked in an apartment with nothing.

[00:21:43] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:44] Adam Cox: 24 7. Seven days a week and yet only six minutes go to like a a segment of a show.

[00:21:49] Kyle Risi: It's a segment of a like an hour show.

[00:21:52] Adam Cox: Yeah. Because this guy must be so bored. What's he doing? Literally just filling out these forms.

[00:21:57] Kyle Risi: Oh my God. Wait till you find out what he had to do.

Now. Right. Of course, as we know, NA Subi gets to work. He is completely naked as well as the table and the cushion. The only thing he has in the apartment is like a small countertop cooker.

That is it. He does have a toilet. He does have a shower with some basic running water, but there's no soap and there's no toilet paper.

[00:22:17] Adam Cox: Wait,

[00:22:17] Kyle Risi: no bed. There's no bed.

[00:22:18] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:22:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And to kick off, he really has to sort of get his priority straight and decide which sweepstakes he needs to enter first.

Of course, food is his highest priority because until he wins his own food, the only food that he's given are dried crackers.

[00:22:35] Adam Cox: That's like a, some kind of welfare check needed here.

[00:22:38] Kyle Risi: for the first few days, NA Subi does nothing but fill out competition entries. Hundreds of them.

It's mostly food, but also clothing. Those are his main priorities. He does find a competition to win an apron. Sadly, Adam, he does not win that apron and so he literally stays naked.

On a good day, he averages around 200 to 300 entries where he'll write out the entry on a postcard and then each day a producer will come by and collect them all and then send them off.

By the way, each entry costs the producers 50 yen in postage, which is nuts. He has to earn, a million yen across the entire challenge.

He ends up entering 70,000 individual competitions and the postage comes to just for those 70,000, 3.5 million yen, which is three times more than what he actually needs to win in terms of prizes.

What?

So it shows you how mental the entire challenge is in the first place. Like there's, he's not even breaking even.

[00:23:38] Adam Cox: Oh my God. but the TV production is paying first though, right? Yes,

[00:23:42] Kyle Risi: they are. And here's the thing, winning these sweepstakes is an instant. Competitions have to close. The winners then have to be drawn and then the prizes have to be sent out.

So in the early phase, all he's doing is building up a pipeline for a hopeful later payoff.

[00:23:55] Adam Cox: And these are genuine competitions. They're not like, you know, on Big Brother, they'd be like stage, wouldn't they? Or something like that. When are genuine competitions that he's entering

[00:24:04] Kyle Risi: in magazines

[00:24:05] Adam Cox: and what are the chances of winning these?

[00:24:07] Kyle Risi: Well, we'll go through some of the chances 'cause his conversion rate is horrendous. In fact, Adam, he has to complete 4,000 entries before he wins his first prize.

[00:24:17] Adam Cox: 4,000. So that's taken him days just to get one prize.

[00:24:21] Kyle Risi: 17 days. Yeah. Before he gets his first prize. It's fucking nuts.

So you can imagine how even after a few hundred entries, you can easily be left feeling really deflated, but also fucking hungry.

especially if all you have to eat are just crackers in the footage in the documentary, the contestant amazing. Definitely recommend watching it. You see him sort of lying down on the floor.

It's like day four, he's feeling crap. nothing seems to be paying off again. It takes time when suddenly he hears a knock at the door.

It's a delivery guy delivering ramen and vegetables. Of course, NA Subi is ecstatic. like there's so many entries he's filled in. He can't remember entering a competition to win ramen and vegetables.

And of course the reason is because he hasn't, the delivery guy goes, that will be 1,700 yen pleases. Turns out the food was for somebody else in the building. They'd knocked on the wrong apartment

[00:25:15] Adam Cox: that must have been producing.

[00:25:17] Kyle Risi: Totally. It is not entirely clear whether or not the producers had anything to do with the mistake. Knowing obviously what we know of that shows our big brother, it wouldn't surprise us, right?

[00:25:25] Adam Cox: Yeah. Producers be producing.

[00:25:27] Kyle Risi: But either way, how devastated would you be in that moment?

[00:25:30] Adam Cox: Yeah. I mean for like several days he's just been eating crackers. He's starving.

[00:25:35] Kyle Risi: Adam, for 16 days, na Subi wins. Nothing. He's definitely flaking out.

Then on day 17 there's another knock at the door. It's a delivery and Na Subi has won a pack of fibre jelly.

They're basically these liquidy gel type snacks that come in these squidgy juice pack type containers. They're usually like fruit flavoured, but they're super, super rich. Insoluble dietary fibre.

They're like a health food snack in Japan because they're filling, right? But also they have virtually zero calories.

Here's the thing, because they're fibre, they make you poop. And na Subi doesn't have any toilet paper.

I'm assuming this because you see him later win some toilet paper in a competition and he is beside himself with excitement. You see him doing this little goofy, naked dance. But as for these fibre jelly pouches, at the very least they're gonna make him feel full.

But now that he's one food, he's now technically on his own because producers stop giving him the crackers. Which is nuts because from a nutritional standpoint, he's in a worse position than he was with the crackers because the fibre jelly contains almost no calories.

[00:26:48] Adam Cox: Like he must be exhausted.

[00:26:50] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Think about what effect that has on your thinking.

[00:26:52] Adam Cox: Yeah. And fibre jelly. That's not, food. No, and he is going to the toilet and he is wiping his butt with his. This is just weird and wild.

[00:27:00] Kyle Risi: Wild. Yeah. You have to jump to the shower and just rinse it off.

[00:27:03] Adam Cox: Why is we've

[00:27:04] Kyle Risi: all been there.

[00:27:04] Adam Cox: How? I just can't believe people put another human through this.

This is like some kind of torture.

[00:27:11] Kyle Risi: It's torture.

Adam. On day 28, another delivery arrives. This time he is won a five kilogramme bag of dried rice. Ideal because he has been issued with a countertop burner in the kitchen.

But then he realises though that he doesn't actually have a sauce to physically cook the rice.

[00:27:28] Adam Cox: I was just about to say this.

[00:27:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So he gets the idea to try using the fibre jelly pouches to steep the rice in like the hottest water he can possibly get from the tap.

But even Adam, after hours repeatedly changing the water, it's still basically raw.

[00:27:44] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause you can't even like leave it to soak for days or something for it to kind of, I dunno. Get soft. And the thing is, he's doing all this for entertainment for six minutes a week.

[00:27:53] Kyle Risi: But he doesn't know that.

[00:27:54] Adam Cox: That's shocking though.

[00:27:55] Kyle Risi: He then thinks that he can try holding the fibre jelly pouch over the burn in the hopes that he can get the water hotter. Closer to boiling points. Remember the pouches have this sort of foil lining to them. So the logic is sound, but remember it's still plastic. So you has to be very, very careful.

Surprisingly, this works. Really. Yeah. And so at least you can make a meal that is slightly more palatable.

[00:28:20] Adam Cox: I understand like the idea of this show in terms of trying to like literally try and win your life or build all these things

[00:28:27] Kyle Risi: a life surprise is

[00:28:28] Adam Cox: t name a life surprises. Yeah. But not to even have some of the basics to be able to do this. It's

[00:28:32] Kyle Risi: unfair, isn't it?

[00:28:33] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:28:33] Kyle Risi: Outside of the house, again, unbeknownst to Na Subi tv audiences across Japan are tuning into, den Pan Shonan and watching Nausia's Challenge unfold in that six minute segment.

From the very first broadcast, the segment becomes an instant success and it only grows from there. Adam, at its peak, this gets around 17 million people tuning in

[00:28:55] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:28:55] Kyle Risi: Just for perspective, the Game of Thrones finale got 16.5 million viewers. So this segment is huge. Mm-hmm. They're tuning in just to heat the sky.

Producers start brainstorming other ways that they can start delivering on the increasing demand outside of sub's allotted six minute segments.

Na Subi has actually been given a diary where he can write down his thoughts and his feelings about how the challenge is going.

Adam, it is very, very clear and actually very sad that he's really struggling both physically and emotionally. And he documents all of this in his diary.

And so producers, they publish it all for Japan to read. it is so popular that producers end up releasing the diary as a multi-volume book series where it essentially sells over 800,000 copies.

It is an instant runaway bestseller. And the entire time Na Subi is blissfully unaware that people are even reading it.

[00:29:46] Adam Cox: And so this production company, they're making money

[00:29:49] Kyle Risi: off

[00:29:49] Adam Cox: of him. Yeah.

[00:29:49] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're making all the money.

[00:29:51] Adam Cox: and he's not getting any of it. I'm guessing

[00:29:54] Kyle Risi: he doesn't even know. Not only that, they're also now making merch and toys, stationary, all sorts of things, all with his image on it.

[00:30:01] Adam Cox: Wow. So this is why it does feel like the Truman Show.

[00:30:04] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

So a few months into the challenge, his pipeline is starting to pay off as the apartment starts filling up with more and more prizes.

Most of it is absolutely useless to his survival or his comfort, but each prize does get him closer to that 1 million yen.

And he wins all sorts. He wins like cinema tickets. At one point he wins a vacuum cleaner so at least he can keep the apartment clean. Right. Because that would be a massive thing of boredom, right? Yeah. Oh, I'll just clean the apartment.

[00:30:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, that would literally take you 10 minutes.

[00:30:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's all one bedroom apartment.

At one point he even wins a bicycle. It doesn't have a chain, but he does manage to turn it into like a makeshift stationary bike to do some exercise and just to have something to do.

[00:30:40] Adam Cox: Why would they give you a bike with no chain? Who

[00:30:43] Kyle Risi: knows. Did they forget it?

I dunno. Of course by this point all the rice is now gone. And Adam, at this point, he's literally living off cans of dog food that he has won.

[00:30:52] Adam Cox: Ah,

[00:30:53] Kyle Risi: which must be so humiliating.

[00:30:56] Adam Cox: I'm sorry, that's not food.

[00:30:57] Kyle Risi: it's not. He does eventually win an item of clothing, but Adam, it is a pair of ladies panties.

[00:31:03] Adam Cox: Oh, so it's, it's been weeks, yeah. Of him naked?

[00:31:06] Kyle Risi: He can't wear the panties in the footage. You see him trying them on, but ala of just two small for him. So he essentially stays nude the entire time that he is in this house.

[00:31:14] Adam Cox: God,

[00:31:15] Kyle Risi: I do wonder if potentially that was applied by the producers because he did apply to win at what we know, an apron. And so I imagine they might be intercepting those deliveries to make sure there's no clothing

[00:31:26] Adam Cox: or just Yeah. Deciding ' cause he's not gonna remember what he's entered.

[00:31:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:31:31] Adam Cox: I suspect. And like you said, that like they just could give him products as and when are just gonna create drama or entertainment.

[00:31:38] Kyle Risi: Possibly. Again, for perspective, I just wanna revisit the cost value deficit here. So he, as we know, enters over 70,000 competitions across the entire challenge. Out of those entries, Adam, he wins around 200 prizes, so that's roughly 0.29% conversion rate.

[00:31:55] Adam Cox: And like you said, most of them are probably use to,

[00:31:58] Kyle Risi: most of them are useless. Yeah, it's shit.

[00:32:01] Adam Cox: Ah, this poor guy.

[00:32:03] Kyle Risi: Of course, as time goes on, his hair gets increasingly longer. He's got a full beard, but also his fingernails are incredibly long as well, which is really shit they don't even think to give him basic things just to help him maintain a little bit of dignity and like kind of ness in his appearance.

[00:32:20] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:32:20] Kyle Risi: But also it means his pubic bush is probably getting really out of hand. Do you think they have to gradually make the eggplant bigger and bigger?

[00:32:27] Adam Cox: He's probably forgotten that he's naked. Do you know what I mean?

[00:32:30] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah, he does. You do forget that you are naked. You forget the cameras are even there as well,

[00:32:35] Adam Cox: but then he must be thinking like a month into this this must be more than just a concept.

[00:32:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah. At one point he receives a delivery for a television. Again, he's super excited because remember Adam, he's so bored as fuck.

However, he very quickly realises that there's no aerial from to even plug it into. So all he gets is just static.

But you know what? When you've got nothing to do, I personally would be happy to just watch a bit of static and let your imagination see what it sees.

[00:33:02] Adam Cox: I don't think I've got the imagination for that.

[00:33:04] Kyle Risi: It's so, oh, stems us on. It's my favourite show. And I would like have, like the bicycle that I'm talking to, I'll call him Hank, like Hank our favourite show's on, oh

[00:33:12] Adam Cox: God. Has he made like, a, a friend? Has he got a Wilson?

[00:33:15] Kyle Risi: No, he's so isolated. he talks to himself.

[00:33:18] Adam Cox: I dunno, I'm just worried about this guy's health.

[00:33:20] Kyle Risi: It's not great. But the thing is that the lack of an aerial probably is intentional because they probably don't want him finding out that he's probably the biggest TV star in Japan at that moment in time.

[00:33:28] Adam Cox: Good point.

[00:33:29] Kyle Risi: Later though, he does win a PlayStation and a train simulator game, which really does help kill the boredom.

But also don't forget that the more time he spends playing on the PlayStation, the less time he has to enter sweepstakes in order to literally survive. Think about that conversion rate that he's getting. 0.29%. He needs to be working round the clock

[00:33:51] Adam Cox: and none of these prizes are that good dog food that you're winning.

[00:33:54] Kyle Risi: No,

[00:33:54] Adam Cox: it's not like a trip to Barbados.

[00:33:56] Kyle Risi: It's a little bit of both. Right. So yes, he wants to win the prizes to make his life comfortable 'cause he gets used and keep those prizes.

But then also every prize he does win goes towards the, the total of 1 million yen. So you could, like, I'm gonna apply for this car, completely useless to you, is not gonna make your life comfortable. True. But it's gonna help the competition end quicker.

[00:34:16] Adam Cox: I get that. But even still, there's a lot of, items that are just like 10 quid or something like that.

[00:34:20] Kyle Risi: Yes. So eventually round seven months in TV audiences start to speculate that maybe this is all just a hoax and that na Subi wasn't in fact stuck in this apartment.

And it probably stems from the fact that even for Japanese TV audiences, this just seems fucking insane. Why would someone volunteer for this for seven months? Do you know what I mean? No way.

[00:34:42] Adam Cox: Doesn't make sense. And he's gonna be like, my parents are gonna wonder where I am.

He's not bothered by that.

[00:34:47] Kyle Risi: He's probably very bothered. Yes.

[00:34:49] Adam Cox: I'm sorry, I don't understand. Like, I like this guy, but I'm also thinking you're a fool.

[00:34:54] Kyle Risi: We're gonna get into why he doesn't just leave in a little bit because there's a lot going on.

but this rumour that's circulating is that he's actually going about his life normally during the week and then occasionally coming into film segments for the show. So worry that this is actually going to affect the ratings of the show producer.

Tosio decides that he's actually going to launch a 24 hour live stream from the apartment.

So Adam, what are some of the problems with having a live stream when you have a butt naked guy inside that apartment?

[00:35:23] Adam Cox: Oh, so for the six minute highlights, obviously they can cover up the nudity.

[00:35:28] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:29] Adam Cox: Yeah. How are you gonna do that for 24 7 hours a day?

[00:35:31] Kyle Risi: Well, it turns out they pull in an entire team to deal with just that one aspect. They have a team of five people whose entire job is to follow his dick around with a joystick, moving the eggplant emoji into place like 24 hours a day.

So if he is asleep and then he decides to get up in the middle of the night for a pee, they have to be on it. They're like, he's up, he's up. And then you've got your, controller just like coming

[00:35:53] Adam Cox: and you're just following him around. What happens if you get like a cramp, be like, ah, I can't move it.

[00:35:58] Kyle Risi: Or he's dancing. 'cause he dancings a lot, so you're like, oh.

[00:36:02] Adam Cox: Or he is doing like, I know star jumps.

[00:36:05] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Five people working on cock cam.

But the important thing is that the livestream puts to bed the doubters and as a result, NA Suvi becomes the most famous personality on television. And he has no idea

[00:36:22] Adam Cox: what does his parents think? Because they were like, don't get nude.

[00:36:26] Kyle Risi: There's a lot of shame, there's a lot of complex emotions going on. 'Cause also they did not know where he went for a while.

[00:36:31] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:36:32] Kyle Risi: This show was for young kids. They weren't tuning in.

At some point, I assume that they did find out, but then they saw that he was basically new when the live stream came out. That couldn't have been great and his mom was like, please just don't get naked. And it's the only rule and it's the one rule that he broke.

[00:36:48] Adam Cox: Yeah. But it'll also be like, and like going to the producers, why are you doing this? My son?

[00:36:53] Kyle Risi: Eventually Adam fans managed to work out where the apartment is so all of a sudden you now have crowds of people including the paparazzi, hanging around outside while Nabi is sitting inside completely unaware that anybody even knows who he is.

This of course, creates a bit of a problem for producers because remember now Subi isn't locked inside this apartment.

Delivery drivers are coming and going all the time, dropping off whatever random prizes that he has managed to win. Mm-hmm.

To them, it is only a matter of time before somebody follows one of those delivery drivers in, finds out exactly what apartment is in, knocks on the door and is like Nabi. We love the show. And he'll be like, what the hell are you talking about?

[00:37:37] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:37:37] Kyle Risi: And so on the 15th June, 1998, it's now around day 155 in the middle of the night, while Nabi is fast asleep, Tosio sneaks into the apartment and literally shines a torch in his face to wake him up.

He's told to get up. He is blindfolded. He's given a blanket to cover up and then he is transported to a new secret location. It's terrible because part of him probably thinks that the challenge is actually over.

Of course when the blindfold comes off, it's another apartment. And naturally, NA Suvi wants to know what is happening. Why has he been moved, right? Mm-hmm. They can't say it's because the public has found out where you are. And so they tell him that they moved him to improve his luck.

Which God knows what that means.

They've moved him close to a post office.

[00:38:21] Adam Cox: I assume they've brought all of his things with him.

[00:38:24] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. I guess 'cause a lot of those things he needs, right? Yeah. So yeah, they probably moved all that stuff.

[00:38:28] Adam Cox: Where's all my stuff? Yeah. You have to start again.

[00:38:30] Kyle Risi: Where's Hank the bike? Who am I gonna ride now?

So this is the point where I really do start to feel really bad for him because it is very clear that he has had enough of this. Right? And technically, like we said, he could leave, remember the door is never locked.

[00:38:45] Adam Cox: But like this is how many months in? How has he left at this long? Like even after a week, I'd be like, I'm out of here.

[00:38:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's not worth the pitch.

But I'm gonna try and explain to you, because I think when you actually look at everything that's going on around him, it becomes much easier to understand why he doesn't just leave.

Part of it is basically the S sun costs fastly. Like now Subi isn't being told the running total of everything that he is won.

The more prizes that start filling up the apartment, he must be thinking, I must be getting close, right? I've already been doing this for months. Surely it's just a little bit longer, right?

[00:39:17] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:18] Kyle Risi: And remember why he agreed to do this in the first place. He was desperate to make it as a comedian and break out into the mainstream, right? This is for his career.

So from this perspective, if he quits now, especially when he thinks that he might be close to finishing, then potentially all of this has been for nothing

true.

But also there's the very practical problem that he's completely naked. Like, yes, he can physically open the door, but then what? Where's he gonna go?

[00:39:42] Adam Cox: I mean, I would take my chances because

[00:39:45] Kyle Risi: you might, your willie's nice people will, people will pay you compliments as you walk bust.

[00:39:51] Adam Cox: Yeah. But you wanna get out, you wanna go back home. You want to eat a good meal. Like you can go and enjoy your life here.

[00:39:57] Kyle Risi: Hey, I didn't say it was the only factor. I'm just saying these are all compounding.

[00:40:00] Adam Cox: I mean, do you know what, that's the least of my worries about leaving the par apartment.

[00:40:05] Kyle Risi: You wanna get out so you can show off your pen?

[00:40:07] Adam Cox: That's,

[00:40:08] Kyle Risi: But then also Adam consider that his mental and physical state also probably has a lot to do with the fact that he just doesn't leave.

Psychologically, his diaries make it very clear that he is deeply unhappy. At one point he even writes about hoping that he might die, oh, it's really dark.

But physically he's also wasting away across the entire challenge. He loses like 40 kilogrammes, and by the end he weighs roughly 50 kilos. Remember he's six feet tall, so he's, so that's a lot of weight.

[00:40:39] Adam Cox: So he should be what, weighing like 80 or 90 kilogrammes to be sort of a healthy weight, I

[00:40:44] Kyle Risi: guess? Yes, exactly.

So you've got somebody who's severely underweight, definitely malnourished, isolated and physically struggling, but also desperate for a career in television and constantly being given the impression that the finish line could be right around the corner.

[00:41:00] Adam Cox: I wonder if that feeling, 'cause you mentioned, I don't know, his sort of mental state, remember in lockdown, it's not anywhere near the same, but when you started to go back outside again mm-hmm. It felt a bit weird and like you're like, oh, do I want to go out?

[00:41:12] Kyle Risi: You become safe in your little isolated space and Yes. You know, you wanna break out of it, but then that's a new barrier in itself.

[00:41:19] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I'm guessing, maybe that's played a part. Mm-hmm. Because it Or mental state as well.

[00:41:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He also does say that there was this unspoken pressure around him because Tosio was such a powerful person in Japanese television. He believed that if he went against him, he had the power to fuck up his chances of having any sort of career in entertainment.

[00:41:40] Adam Cox: Hmm.

[00:41:40] Kyle Risi: Which I think changes the question quite a bit because people often look at the story and go, well, why didn't he just leave? But I don't think the question is whether he was physically capable of walking out the door.

It's how free he felt to leave, which makes us way worse than I originally imagined.

Like the door might have been unlocked, but there was an awful lot of things keeping him inside that room.

And so have I convinced you, can you understand at least why he hasn't just walked out?

[00:42:12] Adam Cox: I think I can, based on how long he's been in there.

[00:42:15] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:16] Adam Cox: I think if it had been maybe after a week or two, you probably could have gone, oh, you know what? This isn't worth it.

But I do get the, the sense that he's put this much effort into it.

[00:42:25] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's the time cost, Val. It's everything that's compounded, but there's so many different ingredients. The time cost fallacy and the idea that it could be around the corner and that his big break and the malnutrition and the psychological kind of impairment that he's now got.

He's also probably not thinking straight. Remember, he is starving.

[00:42:40] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:42:41] Kyle Risi: So yeah, those are the reasons why he doesn't leave and I haven't made those up. He actually didn't ask me anything on Reddit, and he does do a lot to explain why he didn't just leave, these are some of the elements that he expressed.

It's very complicated. It's layers upon layers, and it is something that just ended up compounding.

[00:42:59] Adam Cox: I think it's quite hard to relate when you look at this, because I think most people just say, oh, I just wouldn't do it.

[00:43:04] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:43:05] Adam Cox: But I guess in that situation, his, yeah, his mental state is completely different to ours right now.

[00:43:10] Kyle Risi: Eventually, now Subi makes it today, 335. On the 12th of December, 1998. A couple days earlier, he had just won a set of car tyres worth 84,000 yen, which meant he was just 500 yen away from his 1 million yen goal.

[00:43:29] Adam Cox: You made that sound like he's only 500 away.

[00:43:31] Kyle Risi: It's like $5.

Of course he has no idea at this point, the apartment has boxes and prizes all over the place. He knows that he must be close, right? He's felt that for a while, but he has no clue how close.

And then there's a knock at the door and a little bit late. Na Suvi has won a bag of rice, which pushes him over the 1 million mark.

He's finally done it.

[00:43:58] Adam Cox: God that is, I mean, it doesn't make me think I should enter more competitions,

[00:44:03] Kyle Risi: but at that conversion rate, 70,000 entries for what? 200 prizes? Mm-hmm.

[00:44:10] Adam Cox: I know if I win anything, but at least with this, I, I could win something. Some rice.

[00:44:13] Kyle Risi: You just wanna win something.

[00:44:15] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[00:44:15] Kyle Risi: I can make you believe you've won something. But Adam, this is the moment that actually earns him the Guinness World Book of Records for the longest time surviving entirely on competition winnings. So he's done it, he's got a little bit of an accolade.

[00:44:27] Adam Cox: I hope he keeps that and no one else beats it.

[00:44:29] Kyle Risi: the challenge is, over that night, while Na Subi is fast asleep, producers, they quietly come into his apartment. Producers stand over him with a, a party popper, and they fire it directly into his face. terrible way to be woken up. Na Subi wakes up, he's dazed, he's confused, and Tosio is like, what's this?

And NAI is like, um, party poppers. Tosio goes, when do we use party poppers? And NAI is like, when we celebrate. And so he is piecing it all together and eventually it clicks. And he's like, did, did, did I hit the goal? And he did. Yes.

[00:45:05] Adam Cox: Oh,

[00:45:05] Kyle Risi: so Na Suvi is blindfolded again. He's bundled into another minivan he assumes that he's been taken to a studio or somewhere to wrap everything up.

But when he takes off the blindfold, he's actually at Tokyo Airport and he's taken through security after which the blindfold goes on again.

And when he finally arrives at the destination, he discovers that he's in South Korea.

He has absolutely no idea what is going on, but he does need to worry because they're actually there to celebrate producers. And this is all from his diary. 'cause he had all these musings about really loving Korean barbecue and dreaming about going to an amusement park. And so producers take him to four Korean barbecue, which he just gorges on. They spend the day at a Seoul amusement park where he goes on all the rides.

you see footage of him on the spinny little shells. And he's just having the best time, like even the most basic ride. And he's just like, I'm free. He loves it.

[00:45:55] Adam Cox: Does he have clothes now?

[00:45:57] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. He is, he is wearing clothes otherwise

[00:45:58] Adam Cox: that's,

[00:45:58] Kyle Risi: he's not naked in a theme park.

[00:45:59] Adam Cox: That's a sight on a spinning ride.

[00:46:02] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

So he is literally having the time of his life. can you also imagine just how overwhelming and exciting and just all the emotions that will be going through your mind in this moment? Just like, zero to a hundred in five seconds.

[00:46:16] Adam Cox: I think it'd be quite hard to adjust to civilization. Like, I dunno, I feel like it'd be overwhelming.

[00:46:21] Kyle Risi: Well, He is got other people around him. They're looking after him at this point. So,

[00:46:23] Adam Cox: but yeah, just I think it would be very overwhelming. Like one, all these people, all this noise, all this kind of smells and everything else.

[00:46:31] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, the smells the other day.

It's been so long since I'd, walked into the city it was early in the morning and I think a lot of the stores and stuff were turning on the ovens and you can smell the bakery and stuff that just smell of the city sometimes. just such a lovely smell.

[00:46:45] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:45] Kyle Risi: And I imagine it's that for him, but on overload.

[00:46:48] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:46:49] Kyle Risi: But anyway, at the end of the day He's blindfolded again. He's taken to another location and when he takes the blindfold off, it's another apartment.

[00:46:55] Adam Cox: What

[00:46:56] Kyle Risi: he genuinely thinks, this is a joke and Adam, it isn't. ' cause they tell him they have another challenge for him this time.

needs to do the exact same thing, but he only needs to earn enough money to pay for his plane ticket back to Tokyo.

It is so unbelievably cruel.

Especially after the day that he has had celebrating, eating Korean barbecue, going on all these rise, being told that you've done an amazing job. This is gonna be the start of a beautiful career for you.

And it's right back in another apartment

[00:47:30] Adam Cox: I think this is it. This is the moment I could become a killer.

[00:47:33] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But Adam, while this seems like a cakewalk, he just has to earn enough money for a plane ticket home. It's actually much harder.

Remember he's in South Korea, it's a completely different language and he does not speak, Korean.

All the magazines aren't Korean. And on top of that, he has to enter the competitions in Korean two.

Now to help him, they give him a Korean to Japanese dictionary. And so he has to work it all out on his own.

Ah, now remember these competitions and you know a bit about these competitions, they're not simply filling out your name and address.

There's an element of skill in it. Otherwise it's like gambling, right? So you might need to answer a question or you might need to provide a submission on why you deserve to win. And so not only does he need to work out what every single competition is for, he also has to learn how to write in Korean, but also make the entry good enough to stand out as a winner.

[00:48:27] Adam Cox: I mean, what a time to learn Korean.

[00:48:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

You would do it if you're under pressure.

[00:48:32] Adam Cox: Yeah, you'd have to. But hang on, this isn't what he was sold when he first done this thing. Right?

[00:48:37] Kyle Risi: There is no contract,

[00:48:39] Adam Cox: but I'll be like, he can leave any time. Although how is he gonna get back? Call his mom and dad, call his goddamn mom and dad.

[00:48:46] Kyle Risi: He has a phone in the apartment. I dunno why he, Justin didn't call his mom and dad. He might have done, we obviously never saw that footage.

[00:48:53] Kyle Risi: by the way,

just before they leave from this South Korean apartments, they go one more thing. Give us back all the clothes we gave you the amusement park.

God. In the original television edit, Adam, you see Na Subi, he likes size, he resigns himself, and then you just see him take off his clothes. He's like, here we go again. But here's the thing.

That was the edit. In reality, he's extremely reluctant. They have to cut, and apparently they spend hours talking him around.

In the end, they have to get Tosio in to convince him.

Tosio tells everyone to leave the room so they can talk in private. And according to Na Suvi, he told Tosio that he was done and that there were so many moments over the last year where he genuinely thought about just killing himself like he wanted to die.

Tosio tells him that he understands how he feels.

[00:49:46] Adam Cox: No, he doesn't,

[00:49:47] Kyle Risi: exactly. But if he could hold on just a little bit longer, he would grow to another level as a human being.

[00:49:54] Adam Cox: Oh, shut up.

[00:49:55] Kyle Risi: What? An a-hole.

[00:49:57] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:49:57] Kyle Risi: Eventually the editor picks up with Na Suvi pulling down his trousers. And so TV audiences having no idea how reluctant he was.

[00:50:04] Adam Cox: So does he at this point know that he has been on tv or have they still kept that from him?

[00:50:10] Kyle Risi: No idea.

[00:50:11] Adam Cox: That's, I think he's just not in the right state of mind.

[00:50:15] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[00:50:15] Adam Cox: And he's being influenced. Oh,

[00:50:18] Kyle Risi: and that's the, that's the thing. He's gotten to this point where people are now like, he must be an idiot. Right. He has a mental and physical decline up to this point. And so now that's factoring in, it's not just gullibility and being led along. Yes, he's been manipulated in the early days, but he gets to the point where he just cannot think straight.

And so it's broken. That's why it continues to carry on.

the biggest struggle for so many people in the story is that they don't understand. They why he's allowed this to go on. But you have to consider all of those things we discussed.

[00:50:46] Adam Cox: I dunno if it's anything a bit like, Stockholm syndrome a little bit, all those kind of conditions where you, it's not the same at all, but that those conditions, you can't explain until you're in that situation.

[00:50:57] Kyle Risi: I've seen a few people in the ask Me Anything subreddits and a lot of people, time and time again, they liken it to like abuse victims.

[00:51:05] Adam Cox: That's what I was thinking. And I wasn't quite sure if that's the right line. But yeah, he is being taken advantage of. He's being abused. It's not necessarily physical. Mm-hmm. But it's, it's mental torture essentially. Yeah. And yeah. Thinking he has no other option but to continue doing this.

[00:51:20] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. And what I find really telling is that when they interview some of the other producers in the documentary, they were asked why they didn't step in at this moment in time when he was like, I want to go home.

And they basically say at the end of the day, Tosio had the final say, which is a very convenient way of saying, well, it wasn't me.

[00:51:38] Adam Cox: You

[00:51:38] Kyle Risi: know what I mean?

[00:51:39] Adam Cox: Yeah. You're still a part of this.

[00:51:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:51:40] Adam Cox: And did they do this extension because the show was still so popular, they didn't wanna take off the air.

[00:51:45] Kyle Risi: What am I doing here, Adam? What am my fingers doing?

[00:51:47] Adam Cox: I think you're milking something.

[00:51:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah. They're milking this for everything is worth.

[00:51:52] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:52] Kyle Risi: So now Suby, he gets started all over again. Only now every single competition takes way more effort.

Once again, the only food that producers give him is this massive container of kimchi, which according to his diary entries, he really loves. So it's calculated because they know they're probably fucked up his morale to some degree. And so, given him kimchi kind of, at least, is like, well, at least I'm eating something nice.

[00:52:19] Adam Cox: Yeah. But that, if that's just your only diet

[00:52:23] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[00:52:23] Adam Cox: That, that's gonna be smelly

[00:52:25] Kyle Risi: All that garlic, all the onions. I love kimchi. That's all you're eating.

[00:52:29] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:52:30] Kyle Risi: Can you imagine the burps?

[00:52:31] Adam Cox: Yeah. If the producers walked into that apartment.

[00:52:34] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. And he's pooping in there, Adam.

Amazingly, it takes NAI around two months to reach the amount that he needs for the plane ticket.

This is way quicker than producers expected.

[00:52:45] Adam Cox: Good.

[00:52:45] Kyle Risi: So of course that's not gonna do, so they move the goalposts. They're like, did we say regular plane tickets? Oh, what we meant is business class.

[00:52:53] Adam Cox: Oh, you pieces of shit.

[00:52:55] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. And almost immediately after shifting the goalpost, now Subi wins something that gives him a massive boost towards this new targets. And so they decide, oh no, it needs to be first class. They are literally milking this for everything that they can

[00:53:10] Adam Cox: just stop moving the goalposts. You've had your fun.

[00:53:13] Kyle Risi: Don't forget none of these changes mean anything to Na Subi because he doesn't know the value of what he's won.

So it's mostly for TV audiences who are watching, who are now begin to ask questions about the ethics around all of this. Right.

[00:53:26] Adam Cox: Good. I mean, it's taken them long enough, but

[00:53:27] Kyle Risi: good.

Mm-hmm. So genuinely, I think they would've kept moving those goal posts if they could. It's not until audiences hear now Subi saying on the live stream. Surely, like, surely I must have reached my goal by now that the producers realise that actually we're pushing our luck. And so it ends.

Yeah. It's wild isn't it? I just,

[00:53:46] Adam Cox: I mean I hope this gives him some material. If he does become a comedian,

[00:53:51] Kyle Risi: do you think he would see the funny side of this?

[00:53:53] Adam Cox: I dunno. But he is, he's got some material.

[00:53:58] Kyle Risi: So eventually, Adam on the 18th of April, 1999, after 448 days, producers sneak into his room and they tell him it's finally over.

He has earned enough for first class tickets and that he is going home.

Except get this because they're worried about the attention that he might attract to the airport. They decide to send him back to Japan on a ferry.

So he is earned a first class plane ticket and he can't even use it. I'd be like, I want my first class plane ticket.

[00:54:28] Adam Cox: I mean, I don't buy anything that these people are telling me right now.

[00:54:33] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:54:33] Adam Cox: So I, I'm thinking the worst that they're screwing me over.

[00:54:36] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

So Nabi eventually arrives back in Tokyo again, producers, they blindfold him. They take him to another location. When they remove his blindfold, it is another apartment.

[00:54:48] Adam Cox: Oh my God.

[00:54:49] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

he is so conditioned at this point that he immediately, instinctively just takes off all his clothes and gets naked.

As he starts looking around the apartments, he notices, that something is off. And then suddenly the walls of the apartment revealing a massive live studio audience.

Hundreds of people are there clapping, they're cheering, confetti cannons are going off all over the place.

Nasi is just standing there completely butt naked, and of course completely stunned.

[00:55:23] Adam Cox: I dunno, what if I was him to think at this point?

God, no.

[00:55:29] Kyle Risi: Of course, remember, he has absolutely no idea that everyone in Japan has been watching him for the last 15 months.

After a few moments, NAI is led to the sofas by the hosts. Finally, he's given a cushion to cover himself up with. He's

[00:55:43] Adam Cox: still naked.

[00:55:44] Kyle Risi: He, they shove a microphone in his face and the first thing he says is, oh, my house fell down the entire studio. They literally erupt with insane laughter.

The hosts tell him that Japan has been watching his entire journey and how it's been broadcast every week on television, and that they've even made his journey available via a live stream.

It is in this moment that you kind of see it dawn on him, what that actually means for the hosts.

They're presenting this as excellent news, like, surprise, your famous japan loves you. But for Na Subi, it means all those moments that he thought were private weren't the naked dancing, the talking to himself, but also Adam, the breakdowns, the depression, the being so hungry that you have resorted to eating dog food.

Everyone has seen it,

[00:56:35] Adam Cox: and the thought of like, oh, all this that I went through was just for entertainment.

[00:56:40] Kyle Risi: And then now Subi says something that somehow nobody else in the studio seems to have considered. He's like, isn't all of this just a bit wrong?

And again, the entire studio audience erupts with laughter, which is so rough to watch.

Na Subi is basically pointing out the obvious ethical problems with what is being put through.

Yet nobody sees it in that way. They're all just laughing. Again, the asks him if there were days where he had struggled the most mentally, and he literally says almost every single day.

[00:57:12] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:13] Kyle Risi: to that, the studio audience erupts in laughter again, There's such a disconnect between what Na Subi actually experienced and what everyone else thought they were watching.

To the audience. This was pure comedy to them.. So it's really messed up that two sets of people can experience the same situation and yet interpret them in two very radically different ways.

[00:57:32] Adam Cox: Well, I mean, he is the one that's gone through the suffering. Mm-hmm. As the audience has just tuned in, whilst they're eating their dinner and thinking, this is great.

[00:57:39] Kyle Risi: So, yeah, it's real sad. It's not until the very end of that broadcast that Na Subi has finally given something to properly cover himself up with.

[00:57:46] Adam Cox: Which, yeah, I didn't even dress him.

[00:57:48] Kyle Risi: Which goes to show you how little concern there was for his dignity, even in the moment where he was finally supposed to be free.

Afterwards he's saying to see a doctor, but of course outside paparazzi are absolutely everywhere.

So now on top of everything that he has been through, he now has to suddenly deal with the fact that he's one of the most famous people in Japan, Unexpectedly.

[00:58:06] Adam Cox: And to go from absolute solitude to this. What a, yeah. Weird ride.

[00:58:12] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He probably just needs just a hot minute just to process this, but it's really full on.

In later interviews, NAI says the entire experience has left him with basically no faith in humanity whatsoever.

[00:58:23] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:58:23] Kyle Risi: Which sounds about right.

he talks about how adjusting to wearing clothes again was really difficult for him, and how it just left him feeling unbearably, claustrophobic.

But it goes so much deeper than that. He says that after being isolated for 16 months, he had forgotten how to interact with people.

Even basic things like knowing where to look when someone was talking to him was difficult for him to pick up again.

[00:58:45] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:46] Kyle Risi: He also says, Adam, that existing purely to survive comedy was no longer something that he even thought about.

[00:58:55] Adam Cox: Oh, wow.

[00:58:55] Kyle Risi: Like his entire life had been about thinking of funny things to do to make people laugh. But when you're so desperate to just to survive, you give up on all of that.

So to find out that people found him very funny in spite of his misery, made him realise that people are actually laughing at him. He wasn't even trying, and yet people found him so entertaining.

[00:59:17] Adam Cox: I didn't think of it like that. Yeah.

[00:59:18] Kyle Risi: This is the basically the thing that destroys his faith in humanity.

[00:59:21] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:22] Kyle Risi: And what's really sad is that after all of this, he doesn't actually become the television star that he thought he was gonna become.

He does do some local television work, but nothing remotely on the scale that he expected considering how famous he was when he first came out. Eventually, like we've seen with so many other reality TV people, audiences just moved on NAI sort of faded away.

Like people, he was so well known. People were still recognising, but he didn't really anchor himself. Yeah. In entertainment.

[00:59:50] Adam Cox: He had his 15 minutes and then people move on to the next thing.

[00:59:53] Kyle Risi: 15 months.

[00:59:54] Adam Cox: Yeah. But people do a few weeks, a couple of months on a reality show, not this.

[01:00:00] Kyle Risi: What's also really sad is that the impact this has had on his family.

When now Subi first disappeared, there wasn't really any time for him to explain to his family what was happening, and he definitely didn't know that he was gonna be gone for 15 months.

Mm-hmm. So at first his family were worried about where he was, but when they saw him on television and saw that he was naked, like that concern turned into a lot of shame but as time went on, this in turn turned into a sense of protectiveness because unlike TV audiences, they could actually see that he was struggling.

[01:00:29] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:29] Kyle Risi: So the problem was they had absolutely no idea how to get him outta that situation.

[01:00:33] Adam Cox: I mean, this isn't that long ago, 1998. And to go like, I dunno was like, not just tv, but I'm thinking like the government or whatever it was, the welfare of this man.

[01:00:45] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:45] Adam Cox: And no one's there calling this out.

I just find that kind of crazy that, that you

[01:00:49] Kyle Risi: need, you need a regulation.

[01:00:50] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's,

[01:00:51] Kyle Risi: you need it. It's the only thing that keeps things compliant and, and fair.

[01:00:56] Adam Cox: Exactly.

[01:00:56] Kyle Risi: Without it is, is a wild west

[01:00:58] Adam Cox: Yeah. These, this poor family, the parents are like, well, who do they call? Do they call the producers? Mm-hmm. And if the producer, if they're dealing with this Toshi guy, he's gonna be like, no, I'm doing my show.

[01:01:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

The sad thing is, is that when he finally came home, they had a lot of processing to do. Not only everything he had been through, but also the fact that he was now suddenly really famous and you have to adjust, right?

Mm-hmm. And so after the hype around him started to fade away, he did go back to Fukushima where he starts up like a, a theatre troupe called Eggplant Way. And he like did some gigs around kind of Japan. But largely it sounds like he just wanted to get back to some version of a normal life. Like the experience in hindsight did really leave him traumatised.

[01:01:35] Adam Cox: Yeah, I bet.

[01:01:36] Kyle Risi: But then Adam on the 11th of March, 2011, NA Sub's life sort of transforms once again when an enormous earthquake strikes just off the coast of Japan triggering the 2011 tsunami.

Of course, Fukushima is hit incredibly hard. The disaster causes catastrophic failures at the nuclear power plants. more than 2000 people were killed and more than 150,000 people are displaced, that is just in Fukushima.

Like there were many, many more affected across Japan. Luckily, NAS Sub's family were okay. They did manage to escape the worst of it, but this becomes this massive turning point in his life because he decides that he's going to do everything that he can to just focus and help his community.

And so alongside loads of other people, he starts clearing debris. He's distributing food and supplies, just helping families get back onto their feet, and it's now sub's presence as a local like minus celebrity that does so much like to lift the local morale, especially when he realises that it's his comedy that's actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Like he can just bring just that spark of like joy and happiness in the moment when they're clearing up the remains of someone's house. Do you know what I mean?

[01:02:50] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[01:02:51] Kyle Risi: There's this really lovely moment in the contestants, which is the documentary where his sister talks about people coming up to him and apologising profusely because they had lost his autograph when their homes were destroyed.

And Na Sui is that's okay. I can always make more. Which is such a sweet little moment.

So his efforts and how he was able to uplift people in this community are the things that really turn to ties for his family who start to like become incredibly proud of him. So it's kind of like healed that remnants of that rift that was there.

[01:03:22] Adam Cox: That's a shame that, and whilst I'm glad that that happened, it seems a shame that that's taken 10, 12 years for them to go, oh yeah, our son, he's all right actually, isn't he?

What?

[01:03:32] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So I don't think that they had any resentment. They didn't banish him away, but I think this was an incredibly proud moment.

[01:03:39] Adam Cox: I think it is. I guess what they can see is he's like this light at this dark hour

[01:03:44] Kyle Risi: The key thing is, and Na Sui even says it himself, that for a long time, his entire life censored around himself. But strangely, those 16 months of isolation and suffering has given him this ability to connect with people who were going through their own unimaginable hardship.

Right. He was really able to connect with people because of the experience that he had. Like suddenly this awful thing that has happened to him could actually be useful to somebody else.

[01:04:07] Adam Cox: Mm.

[01:04:07] Kyle Risi: eventually gives him an idea for something much bigger.

He was going to raise money and awareness for his hometown of Fukoshima by climbing Mount Everest.

[01:04:18] Adam Cox: Wow.

[01:04:18] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam, he connects with some Japanese mountain guide called Kenji Cando, which a brilliant name he brings him in to help him out. Adam, he tries three times before he finally succeeds on his fourth attempt.

He is not giving up. The first attempt was in 2013. He is forced to abandon the attempt because of extreme weather in the region.

He comes back in 2014, but this time there is a massive avalanche that rips through the camp, kills 16 people and brings the entire climbing season to a complete halt.

On the third attempt in 2015, the next year. As his team arrives at base camp. This time, Nepal is struck by an enormous 7.8 magnitude earthquake causing another avalanche that tests through the base camp and kills many, many more people.

[01:05:07] Adam Cox: So was he at the base camp when that happened?

[01:05:09] Kyle Risi: He was at the base camp. It was devastating. He is. Okay. But at the time, Adam, this is the deadliest disaster in Everest history and I think it still is,

[01:05:19] Adam Cox: Wow. He's been in some catastrophes.

[01:05:21] Kyle Risi: But rather leaving like so many of the other people did, he stayed behind to help doing whatever he could to support the people around him. He later said that I realised that by helping those around you, you can find deeper resources of inner strength.

So he knows that he is really capable of helping someone be comforted in, in those desperate situations.

[01:05:41] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:42] Kyle Risi: And so Adam, the sad thing is, is that after the third attempt, he doesn't actually have any money to try again.

He definitely walks away from this feeling like he has failed.

[01:05:50] Adam Cox: Yeah. I dunno how much it costs to do these climbs, but has he got loads of money from the tv? Has he got royalties or

[01:05:56] Kyle Risi: anything? No, this is all on his own dime because he only ended up walking away with 50,000 pounds. The equivalent of producers do of course allow him to keep all of the prizes, which is a shit constellation prize because like what used to be have for a set of car tyres or a pair of women's knickers.

Do you know what I mean?

[01:06:13] Adam Cox: I was gonna ask, does he at least get to keep the prizes and then stick them on eBay?

You could have a museum.

[01:06:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:06:20] Adam Cox: This is everything I won.

[01:06:21] Kyle Risi: eBay did start in 1998, so he could have sold some of those merchandise and made a bit of package 'cause he is incredibly famous.

[01:06:28] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:28] Kyle Risi: But also remember Adam 50,000 pounds was basically payment for 16 months of his life, that's nothing.

[01:06:35] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:35] Kyle Risi: His diary remember also becomes this runaway bestseller plus producers made a tonne of merchant toys and stationary, all that stuff, and there's no indication that he received any of those proceeds. Nothing. He was absolutely exploited.

[01:06:50] Adam Cox: Oh yeah, for sure.

[01:06:52] Kyle Risi: So when he's attempting to scale Everest, this is all completely on his own dime. And he wasn't successful.

And so while Na Suvi is trying to work out how the hell he's going to fund another attempt to climb Everest, tosio gets in touch and apparently Tosio isn't even sure if Na Subi will even speak to him because by this point Na Subi has made a pretty damn clear that he has a huge amount of resentment towards him.

Like Na Subi describes him as evil.

[01:07:19] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:07:20] Kyle Risi: Which is understandable.

[01:07:21] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:21] Kyle Risi: If you watch the contestants, Tosio is incredibly difficult to like Adam. He comes across so arrogant, very proud of what he's created, and just generally he's just not very nice.

[01:07:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. I get that vibe.

[01:07:34] Kyle Risi: But this time he genuinely wants to help. Maybe he feels bad, I don't know. But Na Suvi is very reluctant but also very suspicious.

[01:07:42] Adam Cox: I'd be like, , I want a chaperone and you do not blind file me.

[01:07:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's it. And weirdly Tosio ends up becoming instrumental in making this whole thing happen. The fundraising also seems to change something in Na Subi because he talks about seeing how many people were actually willing to support and help him.

And he realised that actually they hadn't forgotten about him at all. And so the entire process starts to rebuild his faith in humanity. So it took Tosio to crush it, and it also then took Tosio to rebuild it up again. I mean, it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

[01:08:15] Adam Cox: Mm.

[01:08:15] Kyle Risi: But there's a strange contrast there, isn't it?

[01:08:18] Adam Cox: I know. There's a, it's almost like if Tosio wasn't involved, he would still have that faith in humanity.

[01:08:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. And so finally, Adam in 2016. Are you ready for this?

[01:08:30] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:31] Kyle Risi: Now, Subi makes his fourth attempt to climb Everest and Adam, he actually does it Na Subi finally reaches the summit and just, just as he gets to the top the walls, Mount Everest fall apart and revealing an entire live studio audience.

[01:08:46] Adam Cox: What

[01:08:47] Kyle Risi: I joking.

[01:08:49] Adam Cox: you bastard.

[01:08:51] Kyle Risi: No, I'm joking. The climb ends up attracting a huge amount of attention, not just towards Na Sui, but also towards Fukushima and obviously all the fundraising, which is quite a nice way for the story to come full circle.

[01:09:03] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

And so was he fundraising as part of this climb then? Were people donating him?

[01:09:08] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. I dunno the details of it, but it seems to be that there was a fundraising element as well.

'cause what's the point in just like, oh, I'm just gonna climb Everest for Fukushima. Do you know what guys would, would probably like some medicine and food. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So I'm assuming that there is some kind of fundraising elements as involved.

[01:09:26] Adam Cox: Wow. And what an impressive thing to do, and that he was still determined to do and he wasn't put off.

I mean, financially, that's the only thing that made it difficult for him. Mm-hmm. But he was so determined to do it.

[01:09:36] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And it's really nice because this time people aren't watching Na Sui because he is suffering or being humiliated. They're watching because of something he's actually chose to do.

[01:09:46] Adam Cox: Yeah. And they're

[01:09:46] Kyle Risi: cheering and do really well. Yeah.

NAI says I'm more aware than anyone else that people can't survive alone. When people are affected by a disaster or other calamities, they inevitably feel alone and helpless. I can't save everyone, but I think it's my personal mission to keep doing what I can do.

[01:10:04] Adam Cox: Oh.

[01:10:05] Kyle Risi: And so with that, a whole new purpose in his life is carved out, devoting a significant amount of his time to volunteering and helping other people affected by disasters. So it's just such an incredible story.

If you do want to know more about the story, I really do recommend watching the contestants.

What it does really well, it really does force you to sit with the different emotions that na Sui goes through on the show.

At the beginning, there's like genuine excitement, but over time you see that slowly disappear as he becomes more and more isolated, more desperate. And at times, Adam genuinely scared.

[01:10:42] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:10:42] Kyle Risi: So following this TV audiences and producers who made the show were really forced to come face to face with what they did to Na Suvi.

[01:10:51] Adam Cox: Was there any, repercussions?

[01:10:53] Kyle Risi: Not a huge amount, because again, there was no regulations.

[01:10:57] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:57] Kyle Risi: It really did bring about a discourse about the ethics of shows like this. You gotta remember, he never signed a contract and he later said that at the time, nobody had really explained to him that what happened could potentially be considered like a human rights violation.

It was actually a Western journalist years later who started asking him like, why don't you just sue?

But the reality is this was at the very beginning of this type of television. It was basically the Wild West, and participants weren't protected by contracts or regulations.

And I'm not having a pop at Japan here, because we went through the exact same thing here in the West.

Reality TV exploded. Producers kept pushing things further, and quite a few people ended up paying a pretty horrible price, right? Mm-hmm. Like the one that comes to mind is Caroline Flack.

[01:11:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. Who, who took her life because of Well, the hate that the media and more so were kind of, yeah. Doing.

[01:11:48] Kyle Risi: So we're still having our own serious conversations about the ethics of these types of shows. And while it's not perfect, it is way better than it was.

And Japan has also gone through the exact same process, like a life of prizes happened right at the dawn of this incredibly unregulated form of reality tv.

And looking back, plenty of people did question what the show was doing. And so since then, stricter guidelines around dignity, psychological safety, informed consent, and making sure that participants actually understand what they're signing up for.

Japan has also largely moved away from these really cruel and humiliating, what they call gaman style kind of challenges.

But interestingly, it's not because of these new regulations. It's more like the audience has just developed this sort of disdain for them, which is so lovely.

Like I prefer that rather than going, we put into regulation so this can't happen again. It's like the audiences have gone,

[01:12:40] Adam Cox: actually, I don't

[01:12:41] Kyle Risi: do, you know,

[01:12:41] Adam Cox: this violates human rights,

[01:12:43] Kyle Risi: whatever. Yeah. This is not great.

[01:12:44] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:12:44] Kyle Risi: Which that must in itself restore a lot of people's faith in humanity.

But don't get me wrong, they still love a wacky TV show. And Adam, that is a story of Na Subi, the Real Life Truman Show.

[01:12:56] Adam Cox: Wow. I can't believe this actually happened. This was a TV show,

[01:13:00] Kyle Risi: isn't it? Just the wildest story.

[01:13:02] Adam Cox: Poor guy. And what's he doing now then?

[01:13:04] Kyle Risi: So he does a lot of activist work. He's still like helping a lot of people.

[01:13:08] Adam Cox: Not comedy.

[01:13:09] Kyle Risi: He's still a funny guy. That's not something that just leaves

[01:13:12] Adam Cox: you naturally Comedian. Yeah, comedian, but not doing standup.

[01:13:15] Kyle Risi: And he's still into his theatre as well. He has the kind of the theatre troop, the Eggplant way. So yeah,

[01:13:20] Adam Cox: I feel like this should definitely be a film.

[01:13:22] Kyle Risi: Well, it, the contestant is such a brilliant documentary. I'd definitely recommend watching that. Yeah,

[01:13:26] Adam Cox: yeah, of course. But

[01:13:27] Kyle Risi: yeah, it should be a film as well.

[01:13:28] Adam Cox: Well, it's just a, it's one of those stories that you just don't feel like is real.

[01:13:33] Kyle Risi: Especially the fact that there was a lovely little bit of internet law in there as well with the eggplant, and that's how we came to associate that with Dicks.

[01:13:42] Adam Cox: Yeah. And '

[01:13:42] Kyle Risi: cause they're not sexy

[01:13:44] Adam Cox: Yeah, we've never heard, well, at least in the West, he's not really that well known, so mm-hmm. It's kind of good that we're finding out about him.

[01:13:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. And I, I don't think we'll ever make these mistakes again. We will still make more mistakes. But I think like, we'll tighten up those regulations as we go. Yeah. This still a very new medium,

[01:14:00] Adam Cox: I think. Like we've seen on Big Brother, how the early days it was very, yeah. Like you say, a lot of contestants were perhaps not looked after.

[01:14:09] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[01:14:09] Adam Cox: But my friend who worked in tv, she would say, I think it was like X on the beach, one of those kind of dating shows they go into the rooms when the contestants are about to get it on to make sure that they're wearing protection.

[01:14:21] Kyle Risi: Yeah. have to check, They have to see the condom wrapper opening and being

[01:14:25] Adam Cox: like

[01:14:25] Kyle Risi: put on

[01:14:25] Adam Cox: used. And then also the, what's the other thing? I think even when some of them are quite drunk, they have to like sit them down and go like, you're, you sure you wanna do this? Mm-hmm. And really try and make sure that they're not pressuring or pushing forward an agenda.

[01:14:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's right. And like, again, these all come from bad mistakes that have been made that we've learned from like america's next stop model. There was that really famous incident where that model was essentially sexually assaulted. when she was in a relationship with her fiance and she was devastated by it.

And I think the fallout from that is America's export model. They just egged it on they got her to phone up her boyfriend on camera to tell him, and she was devastated by that.

[01:15:06] Adam Cox: Exactly. The fact that is weird that these producers have that power over people in that really vulnerable moment. When they just need help.

[01:15:13] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Sad. But with that aside, an incredible story, one of my favourites

[01:15:17] Adam Cox: for sure. And I'm glad it's worked out well for him in the end.

[01:15:21] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Anyway, shall we, uh, run the outro for this week?

[01:15:24] Adam Cox: Let's do it.

[01:15:25] Kyle Risi: And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

[01:15:34] Adam Cox: And if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favour and follow us on your favourite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show

[01:15:44] Kyle Risi: and for our dedicated freaks out there. Please don't forget the next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon, and as always, it is completely free to access.

[01:15:52] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then you can join our certified Freaks tier to unlock the entire archive, you get to delve into exclusive content, bonus episodes, and a sneak peek of what's coming next.

[01:16:03] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, an unlocked door does not always mean a free choice.

We'll see you next time.

[01:16:12] Adam Cox: See ya.