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“The only person who really understands what Tuman felt, for what happened, it’s me.” The phrase is Volume Hamatsuaka ‘Nasubi’, a 49 -year -old Japanese comedian, and the Truman who refers to is not The former president from the US or the author of ‘In cold blood’ nor any other character of flesh and blood that has used that name ever.
No.
Nasubi talks about the truman who plays Jim Carrey in The movie 1998 directed by Peter Weir in which the adventures and misadventures of a man who star in a Telerreality program is narrated Without having the slightest idea.
If you have seen it, you know how delusional your argument is. If not, there goes a quick summary: Truman Burbank is a thirty -year -old who leads his whole life as the star of a very popular reality whose existence does not know.
Everything in his life is false, pure dare, figures and script.
Your family, actors. His friends, actors. His work and home, a set. All 100% designed material for Prime Time. Although he doesn’t know so that he reality Be much more real.
With such a story the logical thing would be to think that Nasubi exaggerates when he says that he is “The only person” capable of empathize “really” with the character of Truman; But the truth is that he knows what he is talking about. The Japanese comedian was not born and grew up on a television set, but at the end of the 90 realityin his country as popular as bloody and crazy. And without knowing it.
Last year his experience was rescued in a documentary, ‘The Contest’directed by Clair Titley, and now recovers it ABC News To probably remind us one of the most delusional stories in television history.
An aspiring famous comedian
Nasubi’s case started in 1998 with a stroke of luck.
Throughout his childhood he had aspired to become A famous comedian In Japan, so a good day decided to appear at the casting of a reality of the country entitled ‘Hisunu! Denpa Shōnen ‘. There he met another twenty loop comedians who had to choose between several cards. In Nasubi’s, who was about 22 years old, put “winner”.
A luck. Or so he believed.
The fact is that this card gave him the right to make the producers put a headphones, they bandaged his eyes and put him in a car without giving him explanations.
“Then they took me to a room and forced me to undress completely because they wanted me to start from scratch. They took all my clothes“, Relatize ABC News.
In it tiny apartment In which they left him alone and in leather he found a woner, a phone, a ball, blank postcards, a radio, a television without connection, a pillow, a gas burner, a shower and the services fair and essential for survive. And for fair we talk about heating, running water and electricity.
Nothing else. No clothes. No food or bottled water. And of course Nothing company In his peculiar confinement.
What explained to him? What was the goal? Nasubi was only told a part of the project. Incomplete and, so it is deduced from His testimonydiffuse enough so that he did not know what he participated in. The idea was that the young man complete a challenge that consisted of surviving with what he won in the raffles of magazines and radio programs.
Hence the postcards, the ball and the magazines.
The contest would end when the symbolic sum of one million yen (around 6,100 euros to the current change). If that happened they would give him a cash prize; Although what Nasubi really ambition was the other promise of the contest: launch your comedian career.
Were you guarantee that it was to achieve it? None.
The young man was given a camera with which he had to be recorded more or less Every two hours And I also knew that I was being filmed. With all that material, they explained, a comic program could then be mounted that perhaps (and only perhaps) would be broadcast on Japanese television.
The promise was enough for Nasubi to continue without having an exact idea of What was really doing with videos. The promise of the prize and fame sufficient. After all ‘Hisunu! Denpa Shōnen ‘ It was a popular program that was broadcast on Nippon TV between 1998 and well entered 2002.
If I wanted to leave at some point, Nasubi had the open apartment door. No one prevented him from crossing her. But he didn’t. Apart from the obvious motivation, which had been left totally naked, one of the questions that have been asked since then is why he moved on.
The young man Recognize ABC News that “felt silent pressure.” “The person I was talking with was a very famous television producer, so I thought it would be better for my future in the entertainment industry not to go against him. I was trying to make me a name.”
“I think there are many reasons,” explained last year to the BBC Tiley, director of the documentary on Nasubi. “One is very stoic and that is due to its place of origin, Fukushima, and her parents, who were very strict. He is also a very loyal person. He did not want to get into trouble and He was very young and naive. It is still incredibly confident. There is also that samurai spirit of ‘I will prevail and endure’ “.
Endured.
What if he endured.
Nasubi was 15 months Living only in that apartment, naked, subsisting with what he earned by participating at a distance in magazine or radio raffles. The young man He came to recognize to To This American Life that during the first days he lost so many kilos that the producers ended up intervening to bring bread and water. Although that help lasted little. Only until he started earning money.
What I got however It didn’t always serve him To survive. During the Nasubi challenge, he made golf balls, a tent, a teddy bear or tickets for ‘Spice World: The Movie’. In your awards list, sugary drinks, rice or even dog food canswith which he survived for weeks.
The only clothes he got were some pantiesso in the recordings their genitals always appeared covered with The drawing of a eggplant. In the videos there are times when he looks happy, singing; but He recognizes that “most” of the time that was locked up suffered.
The big question is … all that for what? What was done with Nasubi’s recordings? The answer is simple: a huge business and a successful program of Telerreality to which, according to The BBC requiresthey were hooked around 15 million people.
The adventures and misadventures of the young comedian candidate were collected in a weekly space, ‘Denpa Shōnen Teki Kenshō Seikatsu’, which became one of the most successful contents of ‘Hisunu! Denpa Shōnen ‘. Even It was done merchandising Inspired by Nasubi.
The young man was famous.
A celebrity of the small Japanese screen.
But he assures that I had no idea.
For more than a year Nasubi’s life consisted of participating in draws, thinking about what would eat the next day, staying worthy of the cameras and praying that when all that ended the prize it was good and videos were broadcast. Meanwhile, millions of Japanese followed their movements sitting at their teles.
After 335 days The young man managed to gather the million yen, but the program decided that its content was too good to put an end, so its authors They changed the script. Literally. The producers gave him clothes, his eyes bandaged and raised him to a car again.
Where did Nasubi end? In another apartment. But this time from South Korea. There they asked him to participate in another truculent challenge: he had to gather enough money to pay the plane ticket to return it to Japan.
It took him four months.
After that endless period and with the money already gathered, the producers re -intervened faithful to their style: they took the young man, his eyes won him, they transferred him to another room and asked him to undress, a situation with which by which by Then the comedian already He felt comfortable. So much, in fact, that after the Nasubi tests He had to get used to On the contrary, to use clothes again.
He feared they sent him to North Korea.
But not.
This time the young man did not end in an anonymous apartment, but in a daring, a 11 m2 room With false walls that had risen in the middle of a set. One in which by the way there were hundreds of people sitting in the public seats to attend the great moment: the moment at which the plywood walls would be dropped and Nasubi would be exposed to the audience that had been observing it for months.
In leathers.
Without him know.
We do not need to tell you how the time was because we have the video, a two -minute recording in which the disoriented young, thin, with the hair ruffled and collected in a bun, covering the genitals with a cushion between applause of hundreds of strangers and a cloud of confetti.
They paid him ten million yenabout 61,600 euros.
And became famous.
Well, it really was, even if he didn’t know.
So yes, when Nasubi says he is probably the person who best understands the protagonist of ‘The Truman show’ knows well what he’s talking about.
Images | Wikipedia
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