starved

The BBC has created a documentary about the experiences of a Japanese man who entered a contest that landed him on a reality TV show with ‘inhumane’ stipulations

BBC viewers were left stunned after watching a new documentary called Storyville: The Contestant, which is now streaming on BBC iPlayer.

The film explores the shocking true story of a controversial Japanese reality show that subjected its star to isolation, starvation, and humiliation for over a year while he was completely unaware that he was being watched by millions of people.

The documentary tells the story of Susunu! Denpa Shonen (Do Not Proceed, Crazy Youth), a 1998 Japanese TV programme that placed 22-year-old aspiring comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu in a flat with no clothes, no food, and no contact with the outside world.

He was challenged to win one million yen (around £6,000) by entering and winning mail-in magazine sweepstakes. On top of setting aside this amount of prize money that he earned via sweepstakes, he was also tasked with using the same method to procure everything he needed to survive, including his food, clothes, and even toilet paper.

Although Hamatsu (who was nicknamed Nasubi on the programme) agreed to take part in the experiment, he had no idea that his every move was being broadcast to a weekly audience of 17 million people for 15 months.

The show was marketed as a social experiment, and Japanese viewers were able to tune in to watch Nasubi’s struggles to survive on his segment of Do Not Proceed, Crazy Youth, which was called A Life in Prizes.

BBC viewers have been absolutely horrified by the way Nasubi was treated. One person took to X saying: “Watching The Contestant and that producer should be in prison for torture and war crimes that violate the UN.”

Another agreed: “I don’t think I’ve ever yelled, ‘That’s so damn unethical,’ as much as I have while watching The Contestant.” Other viewers described the programme as “inhumane” and “gut-wrenching”, while praising Nasubi for being “such a sweet, genuine soul”.

Someone else added: “If it sounds like The Truman Show, that’s because it basically is. His conditions were worse than being a prisoner in jail.”

During his time on A Life in Prizes Nasubi survived on meals like 5kg of plain rice and even wet dog food. In his diaries, he wrote: “I don’t have enough nutrition going to my brain. Being driven to the edge has brought out a madness in me.”

After finally reaching the prize goal, he was released, only to be tricked into repeating the ordeal for several more weeks. When he was finally freed, the walls of a new apartment collapsed to reveal a live studio audience, and Nasubi discovered he had unknowingly become a national celebrity.

25 years later Nasubi has reflected on this horrific experience, sharing: “Even if I get hurt, I want to protect people around me. Instead of revenge, I would like to use that energy for something more positive, like helping people.”

Nasubi now works with charities across Japan and has managed to transform his reality TV past into a source of strength. He said: “When you put energy into other people rather than just focusing on yourself, you become stronger than you could ever imagine.”

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Thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a UN World Food Programme warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday, taking bags of flour after nearly three months of an Israeli blockade. The WFP said initial reports indicated that two people had died and several more were injured in the incident.

As trucks carrying vital supplies pile up at border with Egypt, hungry children look through rubbish for food.

At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza as Israel’s punishing blockade of food, water, and other critical aid to the besieged enclave stretches into its third month amid relentless bombardment.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Saturday that most of the victims were children, as well as the sick and elderly, condemning the “continued use of food by the Israeli occupation as a weapon of war” and urging the international community to exert pressure on Israel to reopen the borders and allow in aid.

Gaza has been under total Israeli blockade since March 2, video obtained by Al Jazeera Arabic showing large numbers of trucks carrying vital supplies piling up on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the queue extending south beyond the city of Arish, located approximately 45 kilometres (28 miles) from Rafah border crossing.

Al Jazeera’s team identified one of the latest victims on Saturday, a baby girl called Janan Saleh al-Sakafi, who died of malnutrition and dehydration in the Rantisi Hospital, west of Gaza City. More than 9,000 children have been admitted to hospital for treatment for acute malnutrition since the start of the year, according to the United Nations.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said he had witnessed heartbreaking scenes of children rifling through rubbish, “looking for whatever is left of canned food products”. The enclave, he added, had reached a “critical” point with international organisations out of supplies and community kitchens unable to prepare meals for displaced people.

“Finding a single meal has become an impossible quest,” Ahmad al-Najjar, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera. “People here have witnessed one charity after another declaring they’re out of supplies, that they’re shutting down their operations because they’re in no position to … offer the population the needed relief.”

“It’s frustrating and infuriating to have trucks piling up on the other side of the fence be denied entrance while the people, even children, are in dire conditions.”

Hospitals face ‘acute shortages’

Suhaib al-Hams, the director of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, said in a statement that medical services were experiencing “acute shortages in more than 75 percent of essential medicines”, with only around a week of supplies left.

He warned that most of the enclave’s medical services will stop without “immediate intervention” to reopen borders and allow medical and humanitarian aid through. He added that patients, who are “slowly dying every day without treatment”, needed to be evacuated urgently.

The continued blockade is the longest such closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, and has come as Israeli forces continue bombarding the territory, killing at least 70 Palestinians and wounding 275 others over the two days spanning Thursday to Saturday morning, according to the Health Ministry.

On Saturday, two women were killed in an Israeli air raid on a house in the town of al-Fakhari near Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, according to reports from Al Jazeera Arabic.

Separately, a fisherman was killed and another injured by an Israeli naval attack off the coast of Gaza City.

Later in the day, two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone attack on southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi area, once an Israeli-designated “safe zone”.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 52,495 people and wounded 118,366 since October 7, 2023, according to the Health Ministry. Thousands more missing under the rubble are presumed dead.