The Contestant is a largely aimless take on an incredible true story

During its run from 1998 to 2002, Susunu! Denpa Shōnen (translated: Do Not Proceed! Crazy Youth) became the biggest thing on Japanese television. The travel-focused variety show, cited by many as the foundation for reality TV as we know it, saw contestants tossed into survival scenarios, their hardships undercut by cartoonish production graphics and boisterous hosts. It was appointment television for millions of viewers—17 million weekly at its peak—the kind of compulsively watchable sugar rush TV that would later take an Americanized form as Survivor and much later be satirized in Hwang Dong-hyuk’s smash South Korean thriller Squid Game.

Susunu! Denpa was the brainchild of producer Toshio Tsuchiya and had a rambunctious irreverence that spoke to Japan’s ever-shifting culture as it existed in the late 1990s, attracting young people looking for a rapid if perilous shortcut to nationwide celebrity. Yet few reached the height of superstardom experienced by Nasubi, the young comic filmed in isolation for television beginning in 1998, whose 15-month quagmire gets a fresh look in director Clair Titley’s largely aimless The Contestant, the latest documentary to be acquired by Hulu.

Through interviews and archival footage, Titley frames Nasubi’s unlikely rise to prominence as a means to retroactively tsk-tsk Tsuchiya, a TV provocateur who took any criticisms lobbed his way as a challenge to push his show’s format to new extremes. Amid the frantic hurly-burly that made up much of Susunu! Denpa, Tsuchiya spliced in what became its most consequential segment: “A Life in Prizes,” a luck-based, webcam-shot series where a single contestant is tasked with winning 1 million yen in prizes ($8,000) through various magazine sweepstakes. The catch? He must do this alone and buck-naked inside a small one-room apartment, surviving only on the goods he scores. Reflecting, Tsuchiya says the idea was a gift from the television gods. Nasubi might disagree.

The Contestant’s diverging recollections of a cultural phenomenon would almost feel revelatory if Titley’s film explored them more. Its account of Tomoaki Hamatsu, known to the world as Nasubi (“Eggplant,” so-named for the shape of his head), might even transcend the stranger-than-fiction infotainment heap that fills up streamers, given the decades of reality television that’s ripe for mass introspection, yet Titley doesn’t mine for anything other than what’s already been explored elsewhere. Her talking-heads format, packed with cleverly implemented and (one presumes) deliberately annoying celebrity narration from Fred Armisen, toys with the documentary format without breaking the mold. The Contestant isn’t here to change the world or even seriously challenge it; it’s happy enough telling us about the people who did.

And when The Contestant focuses on Nasubi’s story, recounted by the man himself, it’s engrossing. Chalk up much of the film’s energy to the sideshow antics and production design of Susunu! Denpa, which makes Titley’s template documentary approach feel lifeless by comparison. As we watch footage of Nasubi being mangled by Tsuchiya’s TV thresher—his hair grows into a wild mane, and he becomes distressingly skinny—Titley formats the program’s original standard aspect ratio so that it’s cradled inside a black widescreen frame, the aim being to diminish its pop exuberance enough to scrutinize it. One telling example: Tsuchiya orders Nasubi to strip, and just as we hear the audience laugh in disbelief, Titley cuts to Nasubi in the present, telling us he never signed a release to be filmed nude.

Did this make him angry? If so, is he still mad about it? If he’s asked, we don’t see it, so we don’t know. Later, he speaks candidly about his deteriorated mental health during the contest, which included suicidal thoughts (“I didn’t have the courage,” he says). What was it about his mental health that kept him in that apartment? Another question: we know that Nasubi’s antics were broadcast during his isolation, but does the fact that he never did indicate betrayal on Tsuchiya’s part—or is it just good television? Fodder for another documentary, perhaps.

If it’s outrage we’re meant to feel—triggered either by Tsuchiya’s cool recollection of his creative decisions or the people he exploited so successfully that it was replicated the world over—it’s articulated mildly, usually by Juliet Hindell, a former BBC Tokyo correspondent there to nix the “you had to be there” sentiment that typically comes as a response to any moral indignation over problematic cultural touchstones. (Hindell’s most memorable contribution to the documentary: her suggestion that Tsuchiya’s method of obscuring Nasubi’s junk may be why the eggplant emoji is now shorthand for “penis.”)

Titley’s respect for her subject is admirable and feels genuine. But her defense of him feels unnecessary, especially in the final third of the film, where it becomes clear Nasubi has made peace with his celebrity and has even used it to do good for his community (as he did in 2011 during the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster.) That’s the biggest disappointment of The Contestant; it’s a fresh take on an amazing story, one that has already endured much media scrutiny (it even has a full episode of This American Life), but it has nothing new or productive to say. It’s an earnestly made document with no clear points, just faint admonishment.

So, The Contestant is a standard-grade documentary buoyed mightily by its subject—no harm in that. If nothing else, it’s fascinating to see Nasubi here—older, wiser, and more evenly tempered than his manic persona in 1998—recalling the events that made him a household name. As The Contestant proves most deftly, he was a terrific ham back in the day, though his recollection suggests he might be tired of talking about it. If anyone appreciates the cost of entertainment, it’s Nasubi, which is why it’s ironic he’s been asked to relive the past to entertain the present. He’s already paid the price.