Anybody who has seen on the dark side of the Internet knows that Japan has some seriously bizarre things to offer. Japanese game shows are no exception.
The concepts, ideas, and how they all play out are baffling, entertaining, but downright crazy. Some almost qualify for physical abuse, while others flaunt gaudy attire.
Here is a list that guarantees you a wild ride into the creative Japanese game shows industry:
1. Candy or Not Candy
As the name suggests, eminent personalities are fed things that could or could not be candy. It is up to them to land the right answer. Given our premise about Japan’s tactics, you know how bizarre these objects can be.
2. DERO! DERO!
The participants on this show do what is the metaphorical equivalent of walking into a pressure cooker. They unfurl riddles, while the creators of the show subject them to insane levels of anxiety and fatigue.
3. TORE!
You know how they tell you that your life does not depend on an examination? Well, they’re wrong. In this show, the participants are literally turned into a mummy and stored inside a tomb, if they get their responses incorrect. Talk about being extreme!
4. Human Tetris
There are insanely difficult human-shaped holes in foam structures that rush towards you. You have to master the yogic postures or brutally thrown off the podium.
5. The Bum Game
You place your buttocks into cement or plastic butt-shaped seats. Other participants have to guess which of them belong to you, based on the two perforations on the seats that give them a glimpse of your asset.
6. AKBingo!
This is akin to dodgeball but one from your nightmares. If you cannot move away in time, then a set of comedians set a bizarre task for you. In a certain episode, two women pumped air into a tube, through their mouths. The insect in the said tube would end up in the mouth of the one who lost.
7. Let’s Go To The End Of The World.
The sound of a free world tour sounds very appealing, eh? Unless you’re in a box, with a ferocious bear tapping the surface to God’s glory, trying to find its way to your flesh. What more? You have to be recording the atrocity, while it is happening to you.
8. Close Up Of Sleepy Faces
A brother-mother duo roams around a room full of sleeping women, arousing them from slumber through any method they deem useful. The show seeks the most ‘cute’ way of waking up. If the judges don’t think you are worth it, then they hit you with a pie in the face.
9. Strip The Girl
A nude model is placed behind a screen. There are numerical values on the board, each standing for a particular question that the participant needs to answer. If you get it right, you’re allowed to remove the part of the board that contains the question’s number. One who gets all of it correctly gets to see the woman stark naked.
10. Spread Your Legs
You need a trio for this to work. The first woman is in charge of spinning the ‘fortune wheel’, the second sits on a metallic object designed to cause pain, and the third tweaks this entire event. The higher the number on which the wheel stops, the wider her legs open.
11. Slippery Stairs
As the name rightfully suggests, you need to climb a staircase washed in gallons of soap. Should you slip, there is a pile of dirt and goop waiting to welcome you. This makes your chance at survival even more remote.
12. Human Bowling
Need anybody explain this? Japan got tired of normal bowling balls and wanted humans to resemble them instead. So, participants are twisted into balls and sent flying along tracks in order to tumble gigantic bowling pins.