The world’s first reality star now has a bizarre, incredible but true story told in Hulu’s “The Contestant.”
In 1998 Japan, Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed Nasubi, was plucked from what he thought was an audition and offered a challenge. Cut off from the world, stripped naked and installed in a small room, he was given stacks of magazines whose contest coupons would give him food, clothes, appliances. When he reached a million yen, he won.
While Nasubi had no contact with the outside world, he could leave at any time. He stayed for over a year.
The twist? He didn’t know his daily life was being broadcast in a hit TV show (his privates were hidden by an animated eggplant). A surprised Nasubi emerged as Japan’s most famous celebrity.
“Contestant” writer-director Clair Titely, stumbled on Nasubi’s story on the internet.
“I was fascinated that people hadn’t explored Nasubi’s story,” said Titely, seated on a sofa at a Manhattan hotel next to Nasubi and a translator. “A lot out there was to laugh at the Japanese, ‘Look what these crazy people did!’ But they didn’t ask Nasubi what he thought of it. They didn’t ask the producers. I felt there was a deeper story to be told.”
Asked about looking back with “Contestant,” “Of course I have trauma,” Nasubi, 48, answered. “Watching reminded me of what I had to endure. Many times I thought about leaving because it was very hard. But then I’d win prizes in sweepstakes and that gave me joy. I could survive!
“Personality-wise, if I decide to do something I have determination, fortitude to stay until the end. I don’t know how to explain it. Some may call it a Japanese way, like a ‘samurai spirit’ that was living inside of me.
“Of course, I thought of killing myself because it was very difficult. It was my own personality that kept me going.”
Nasubi, a favorite son of his native city Fukushima, went back home. “I always thought by doing my best I could give something to people.”
Then in 2011 Fukushima’s devastating earthquake killed thousands. “I wanted to encourage people who were in distress and give them hope by doing something for them. If I give my life to it, maybe once again I could offer hope to people.”
Which is why he decided to climb Mount Everest which took four tries to reach the summit.
“It was very scary but then, like my prizes, it did me good because of the experience that I had. Mentally, it was much, much harder to be locked inside the room than climbing Everest. There is no comparison. After that experience Everest was nothing.”
“The Contestant” is streaming on Hulu
