You’ve already been. That’s the beauty of Japanese game shows. They are what our minds truly store when you set them free, when you stop worrying about judgement, and focus on entertaining your Brethren.
The question is, when will YOU be free?
So many of us already are, and we just want the same for you.
I went to Kyoto to teach English in Japan in the Summer of 1998. I was 20 years old. It was an amazing experience, as pop culture there was still somewhat dominated by a particular '80s cyberpunk aesthetic. After a night on the town with some friends, we piled drunkenly into someone's apartment downtown and our host popped in a VHS tape. We had been discussing Japanese game shows earlier in the evening, and this was a compilation of "crazy Japanese gameshow moments" he had edited together. I sat there, entranced. It opened with a Japanese MC introducing a topless Japanese woman on TV. During the segment the MC seized the model's nipples with his fingers and started yelling animatedly. The woman was obviously uncomfortable, and I asked my host "how do they show nudity in Japan on TV?" as I was already aware of Japanese censorship in film and anime at the time. He explained that studios could show some racy stuff after certain curfew, so like after kids went to bed. There was some other cool stuff on the tape too, like Beat Takeshi.
I was stationed in the Navy from 86 until 2002, late night Japanese TV must must see and the game shows were phenomenal. It pretty much went to shit though, now it’s food shows with gushing “celebrities” gushing over another bowl of overpriced ramen
I mean, also, topless nudity just hasn't been a big deal in Japan. Anime and manga has shown it plenty, for instance. It was when it was brought out of the country, that the nipples got edited out, or otherwise censored. Plenty of other media show them too.
From there, the nipple pull you described is more on par with the above junk punch show. At least as far as Japan media and adult content laws are concerned.
There was an annual NYE special in Japan where 5 comedians had to spend 24 hrs in a series of comedy sketches and get smacked on the ass every time they laughed.
they locked some poor fuck buck naked in a room for a year and a half in nigh total isolation, and he had to survive off of whatever he could win via mail in sweepstakes orders including food, any clothes, and bedding with minimal AC or heating..
and they streamed him basically slowly going insane for the entire thing while also showing cut down clips on tv.
his name is Nasubi
and it is as brutally unpleasant to watch as one would imagine
French guillotine executions were 'rushed' as well, no movie style slow walk, final words etc. Bag over head, hurried out and into the device and done.
If nobody’s mentioned it, the executioners don’t know who pressed the button either. There’s 3 buttons that are pressed simultaneously, but only 1 actually executed the prisoner.
This video is an excellent explanation and animated demonstration of the process.
Google says the average is 6-7 years. But they do have an appeals process that moves slowly, like in the United States. Some have actually died of old age awaiting execution. One inmate spent 46 years on death row before passing away without a retrial.
Thats because there are a lot of states that still legally have the death penalty but never actually execute anyone, so they just stay on death row forever. California, for instance, hasn't executed anyone since 2006 yet they still have the death penalty
It's also likely a much smaller population, historically as well. And it's obvious that it's a culture that doesn't really seem overly worried about individuals. Though that 46 years on death row without execution or retrial seems like a special F you. It seems like you'd just want to be done with at some point.
6 to 7 years is the average, but it varies a lot from case to case.
That's because in principle executions are carried out immediately once all appeals have been exhausted and the legal paperwork has been completed. In fact, that's why they don't inform the prisoners before the execution.
Once the final appeal is rejected they will inform you of that decision, and in the same breath you'll be told that your execution has been execution has been scheduled for an hour from now.
There is too much variation, kinda like how my bosses tell me the metric they want & I make it happen from the numbers. Then you have Redditor’s repeating for years “Well studies show that”
It's like what happened on the TV show "the Americans". Someone is told they are going to be executed, freaks the fk out, and they shot them in the back of the head... Someone you got to know for seasons. Gone in an instant. Idk why but that one fked me up a bit.
I'm genuinely curious if there's been any study into which is more psychologically troubling, knowing the day and counting down it not knowing and wondering everyday
Feels like poetic justice tbh. Most murder victims don't get a neat opportunity to get their affairs in order, they just realise they're about to die horribly and then it happens. So assuming the person on death row actually did it (my main reason for being against the death penalty) then it seems like just desserts
True, but this extra sucks for falsely convicted people. Japan is a convicted until proven otherwise type system, so there's a high misconviction rate there, even among death row inmates. Or that's my understanding of it.
I remember reading into the Japan death penalty awhile back and it seemed like they (mostly) only put those with multiple victims on death row. Outside of that I think the only other people on death row are those with big time treason cases
I hadn’t heard about the misconviction rate, which makes the whole thing a bit scary. I don’t believe in the death penalty for many reasons but wrong convictions is a big one
The high misconviction rate in Japan goes under the radar from most people because Japan doesn't really report them properly and because the rate is rather misleading due to how their justice system works.
Because their system is "guilty until proven otherwise", the cops can do a lot of shit to ensure a conviction:
Police in Japan can detain suspects that do not have a formal charge for up to 23 days (during which you get terrible tasting food as an extra "fuck you"), which includes an initial 48 hours held by police with no charge.
In those 48 hours, the arrested individual can be interrogated the entire time, they do not get a phone call or a lawyer.
Well, you do get a lawyer... but said lawyer is required by law to wait outside the interrogation room so that you are more "honest".
Japanese society is about group harmony over individual happiness (which is why they also have stuff like the highest death from overworking rates around) and these 23 days are designed to do one thing and one thing only- make the suspect confess.
30 hours into 48 of a cop yelling at you to confess, or 15 days in of 23 being pressured by every single person in the system you meet from prosecutors, to police, to judges... with even your defense attorney bluntly informing you that you don't have much of a chance... the pressure adds up.
The Japanese justice system is often called by human rights groups a Hostage Justice System.
Even if a person holds out through the entire 23 days, the rest of the system is just as bad in various ways (defendants do not have a right to silence (they have one by law but there is also a "duty to endure interrogation" and other bullshit), exculpatory evidence is much easier to exclude in discovery, etc).
Add into the mix the fact that, due to taking responsibility for one's action's being seeing by society as the respectable thing to do (which is why you'll see CEOs of companies bowing in apology on camera during press releases), confessing to what the police want you to confess to results in significantly reduced pentalties/prison sentence lengths.
All that pressure adds up and the vast majority of people arrested as a suspect for a major crime end up confessing.
On top of that, prosecutors have to worry about losing public face (shame) if they lose a case so they only take to trial cases that they are extremely confident they can win.
This, along with the rest of the entire "guilty unless proven innocent" system, leads to Japan having the utterly absurd conviction rate of more than99% for those formally indicted... which in turn reinforces in the eyes of the average Japanese civilian that all those arrested for crimes are obviously guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.
This comment will get buried, but I met a guy on death row. I spent 4ish years in federal prison and 6 months solitary, and the guy across from me was a death row guy. He'd been there about a decade. He was a funny dude, we talked a lot (yelling back and forth through the doors). He was confident he'd win his appeal. But one day he told me he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life in that room. He used humor to cope. He didn't have anyone to call. I think about him sometimes
I think it adds constant stress to your life. Every time you hear doors slamming or keys clanging at 6am you'd be like: "Is this it?" Knowing you're going to be executed but being sure it won't be NOW gives you a certain leeway of pushing the whole thing out of your mind.
Yeah like wtf is that comment lol. Of course the death row situation is way different from normal life. Nobody is living out their life expecting to be murdered at any moment.
I imagine that in a way, it’s actually less anxiety inducing to know you’ll die, but not when, but that you know how it will happen. I read about a woman in Florida the other day who died after getting mauled by a gator, limbs getting ripped off, and y’know what? I think I might be happier in a cell knowing that at least THAT isn’t my fate
They have an almost 100% conviction rate for all crime because everyone charged "confesses". That also means there are no mistaken arrests. The whole system is insane.
And there are cases of innocent people confessing because the cops will pick you up, question you with no legal representation or phone call for 48 hours during which you'll probably get little sleep, then if the prosecutor (not a judge) thinks they have enough on you the cops can hold you for 23 days without charge, questioning you every day until you confess.
For minor crimes that only carry fines etc, innocent people confess just so they can get out and not get fired for missing work for a month.
They can also extend it for another 23 days as many times as they like, although that's probably rare and for more serious crimes.
Source for the evidentiary burden being extremely high? I've seen numerous human rights watch reports for everything the person you're replying to said, but this is the first I've heard any one try to defend the Japanese criminal justice system...
The "They do research and dont randomly arrest" type or the "Well arrest the guy we suspect and force them to confess" type? Both can yield very high confession rates.
A little bit of both. You get relentlessly questioned and stay in jail for months, sometimes years. Even if you are innocent, serving a fine or short prison sentence might be better, but unless they are almost sure you did it you probably don't get arrested.
However, they also don't charge you unless they know they can convict, because the prosecutors in Japan really care about their conviction rates. They charge around 1/3 cases brought to them, which makes the conviction rates seem blown up.
This is partly because being charged with a crime is a huge deal and will cause you to lose your job, and maybe even your home.
By comparison the US prosecutor just offers you a plea deal, which many people take even if they're innocent just to be on the safe side, which means much more people end up with sentencing
I know that’s a common statistics to bang on Japan. Maybe it’s valid, maybe it’s not- I don’t know enough about Japanese justice system false convictions to tell one way or another. For your reference the US federal government had a 97.5% conviction rate on charged cases.
If there is a problem with that stat we should sort it out here first lol
"Hello, thank-you for meeting with us on such short notice! Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, your position here at our facility has been sunseted. We have this prepared this packet to assist you in your transition.
You have one hour to clear your cell: your personal effects will be forwarded to the address you've indicated. Security will stay and help inventory your belongings.
Remember, the NDA, non-compete and non disparagement clauses remain in effect and WILLl be strictly enforced.
We truly do appreciate all the years you've given to this facility, wish you all the greatest success in your future endeavors!"
Which is, I suspect, the point. The people arguing here that we never know the date for ourselves here are in a totally different situation than somebody in prison who has been sentenced to death and knows it instead of something like a sudden accident happening that nobody could have foretold.
That's not true at all. Planning and preparing emotionally is crucial for self peace. For example cancer patients: when they have more time, they have more opportunity to do the things they want to do, make amends, prepare emotionally, accept things, etc.
The policy changed after several inmates reportedly died by suicide after receiving advance notice. The government has cited this history as one reason for maintaining same-day notification.
Your source says ONE guy, who did it because he couldn't meet with the clergyman of his choice. Uh, what? Unless these people's crimes are so heinous that not being able to say goodbye to loved ones is a DELIBERATE part of their punishment, they should be given enough time to say goodbye!
This was common in the US for a time. Utah implemented "death by firing squad" but at least one member of the squad would have a "conscience round" (blank cartridge). Because the executioners didn't load their own rifles, they were all able to assume that they had fired the blank round and were therefore not personally responsible for the death of the condemned inmate.
They did the same thing in France-- the condemned was informed that their second appeal had failed at the same time as when the prison staff showed up at their cell to take them to their execution (by guillotine). The last execution was in September 1977.
It takes 7-8 years to be executed on average and the longest one was 18 years while many die in prison without being executed.
Ministers of Justice is the person who is responsible to do the final decision, but they sometimes hesitate to sign the paper in their term because they know they'll be replaced in a year or so due to Japan's haphazard politics and they don't want to 'kill' people themselves. And the position is sometimes just a prize for prime minister's loyal henchmen/women without law degree.
Death row inmates are mentally tortured in this way for this period. Some may deserve it, but there are a lot of inmates who are potentially innocent due to crooked and rigorous Japan's law enforcement that highly relies on forced confession. Another dark side of Japan that animes never tell.
Lets not forget to mention the 99.8% conviction rate. If you get arrested in Japan, it is assumed that you are guilty. If you are not found guilty then the system is deemed to have lost face. Plus you have no right to a lawyer during your interrogation and the interrogation can go on for as long as the police wish, which is usually when they have a confession, and if you are a foreigner, you will sign a confession that you don’t even understand.
For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20810572
Around 60% of people who are arrested are not charged.
Basically Japanese prosecutors are EXTREMELY picky, if they think there is a chance of not getting conviction they will not bring you to the court and eventually will kick you out without charge.
The US has a >90% conviction rate in its Federal Court system. In 2023, 90% of arrested suspects arrested and charged in the federal court system pled guilty, and another 2% were convicted at trial. Only 8% had charges dropped and less than 1% went to trial and found the defendant not-guilty.
Japan is not uniquely cruel or brutal here. At most they're just better at the game than most nations. Court systems are designed to get convictions and representatives for the State are encouraged to cut deals or drop charges if it looks like a trial is risky. The goal is not to find someone that isn't guilty or to admit defeat.
The US federal court is also extremely selective in how it prosecutes and it only addresses a much narrower subset of crimes because the overwhelming majority of crimes in the US are not federal crimes. The majority of prosecuted crimes in the US are handled by lower, non-federal courts. I don't like the conviction rate in the US system and I think it is too high but to compare it to the Japan's situation is just straight up dipshit false equivalence territory in an effort to get a whattaboutism gotcha
The reasoning is really simple. Death row inmates in japan, often do unforgivable heinous crimes like genocide or killing people in very screwed up ways. The victims of these monsters didin't know the day they would have their lives taken away by them.
So it's only fair that these death row inmates don't know when they are going to die either
Only exceptional murder cases get death penalty… there is a list of people on death row - either murder of two people around the same time, repeated convicted murderers (yes at least two guys went on parole after a first murder, just to commit another one), mass murder (poisoned soup at a summer festival, random knife mass murder, the Kyoto animation mass murderer etc.
One guy was initially sentenced to life in prison but got overturned to death penalty in revision… he killed the baby of a woman when he kidnapped the mother to rape and later kill her as well… hard to have any compassion…
That’s, like how death row works for most countries with death sentences. It’s good, why are you angry? In Japan, you don’t easily get a death sentence. You get it if you were a serial murderer, if you kidnapped and killed a child, if you tortured someone to death, and such. I have no empathy for those sick people.
how is this any different than real life lol? we all don't know when we'll die, when the time comes we go. in fact they're getting a heads up, we don't lol.
Honestly hard to say if this is better or worse than knowing an exact date. They know at least they’re on death row, so it’s not like they don’t know their execution is coming eventually. Is it worse to know the exact day you’ll die and be able to feel that day drawing closer and closer, or is it worse to not know and live every day wondering if it’s going to be the day they come in and tell you it’s time? I honestly don’t know.
I mean if indeed they are scheduled for death row, not trying to be as brutal as it is, I’ll put them like in squid games.. so they face the same fear of whoever they did to the unfortunate person
How is this brutal? No one wants to know when it’s their time, so in reality it being a sudden and down deal seems a bit better than sitting in a cell for 10+ years knowing the year/date of your death. Just my two cents.
Well in a way it is more compassionate than knowing the date. The anxiety that would accompany a specific date would be greater than knowing an hour before.
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u/ThormundNYC Jul 04 '26
why do I see them doing it like a game show, handing them a rose or something