The Most Bonkers Game Shows In Japanese History

"Takeshi's Castle," which aired between 1986 and 1990 in Japan, was envisioned as a live-action version of the classic video game "Super Mario Bros." — and they pretty much nailed it. In each episode, dozens of contestants would be tasked with completing such challenges as dashing across a series of unstable, floating stones in a pond, dashing up a narrow, rocky chute while dodging enormous (fake) boulders Indiana Jones-style, attempting to stick the landing on a series of risers while swinging over a muddy pit, and hanging onto a bucking bronco that looks suspiciously like Yoshi. The games would conclude with the storming of the titular castle, presided over by commentator Count Takeshi, by contestants trying to hit a series of targets with water guns (and later, light guns). 

Obviously, a massive part of the show's appeal — along with its zany cast of characters, frequent use of popular tunes, and sarcastic commentary — was the tendency of contestants to, well, biff it in spectacular fashion. The series was popular enough to be reworked for overseas audiences as "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge," featuring "Takeshi's Castle" footage edited into new episodes with new hosts and characters — and in 2023, Prime Video rebooted the original series, with a fresh set of ridiculous and amazing challenges.

The quiz format has been a staple of game shows since their inception, and to this day, the vast majority of those shows have rules that boil down to "answer a bunch of tough questions." Depending upon the nature of the questions, most of us probably feel like we could probably do pretty well at this; heck, on a good day, any one of us might be able to walk away with thousands of dollars, or a new hydroplane, or whatever our favorite show happens to be offering. That's part of the appeal of game shows, but consider this: Even if one possesses a formidable degree of knowledge, how much tougher would it be to answer those questions if one had to do it under duress? Like, say, getting slowly mummified?

This is the premise of certain segments of "Tore!," a show in which contestants must complete weird physical challenges while answering questions. In one of these challenges, participants have 60 seconds to answer seven questions while a machine slowly wraps them up in strips of cloth. If they fail to do so, they end up completely wrapped from head to toe, and two halves of a giant sarcophagus descends upon them, slamming shut while a blood-curdling scream sounds. No pressure!

In America, there are "reality" shows like "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race"; in Japan, the equivalent is "Sekai no Hate Made Itte Q," or roughly translated, "Let's Go to the End of the World," as per the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Known in the Western world by its English title "The Quest," the show is one of the most popular television series in Japan, and its premise is simple: Participants travel to far-flung locales to partake in weird local rituals and festivals, participate in dangerous challenges, and generally insert themselves into bizarre situations (and sometimes physical danger) for the amusement of the viewing audience. Straddling the line between game show and variety series, "The Quest" certainly offers viewers a glimpse into some novel experiences. In one of its most infamous segments (presented above), a participant volunteers to enter a plexiglass cube with a video camera in order to get up close and personal with a hulking grizzly bear, which proceeds to bat the cube around like a toy with the hapless woman inside.

The show has drawn some unwanted attention for one of its segments in particular. In 2018, Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun ran a piece alleging that at least some of the colorful, exotic, and exceedingly strange street festivals presented in the show were staged for the benefit of the cameras. This prompted an investigation by the series' network, Nippon TV, whose president Yoshio Okubo apologized to viewers in a statement, saying that the series' production "must not drift away from the ethical standards of regular society" (via The Mainichi). Don't try to figure out how that statement squares with the grizzly bear stunt, you'll just get a headache. 

How's this for a game show premise: A group of contestants are released into a large, contained area. They're given various missions to complete, which they must perform in an allotted amount of time, and they must stay within the area for a full two hours — all while being chased by menacing hunters, whose duty it is to, well, hunt them down and dispatch them from the game. Sounds awesome, right? What's that? This is pretty much the exact premise of the Stephen King novel "The Running Man," and its movie adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, it's also the premise of "Run for the Money," which is pretty much as intense, just less lethal.

The missions, and rewards for completing them or punishments for failing to do so, are often centered on the game area itself in diabolical ways — the failure to vacate one section of the arena within a given time might result in that area being flooded with hunters, while success might result in the game area being expanded, for example. Of course, an attempt was made to Americanize the concept in the form of "Cha$e," which aired on the then-Sci-Fi Channel for a single season in 2008, but it just didn't slap like the original. "Run for the Money" is still ... running, if infrequently, having aired just over 30 episodes since 2004 — and Netflix Asia has rebooted the series with an even more harrowing feel (which you can catch the trailer for above), streaming four episodes in late 2022.

Take a reality show involving physical challenges, a travelogue featuring interesting and unique locales, a scavenger hunt involving... well, scavenging, and add a dash of cooking show with plenty of a certain spicy substance on the side, and you'll get "Find the Wasabi," a series that pits celebrities against each other in a bid to overcome adversity, win over the judges, and hunt down the "secret spice." Each season of the series takes place in a different region with new judges, new prizes, and new challenges, with just one common element. One should not have much trouble guessing what that is.

Season 3 of "Find the Wasabi" saw Japanese boy band Boys and Men, not to be confused with Philadelphia boy band-turned-man band Boyz II Men, presiding over the festivities in the Japanese city of Nagoya, which is just lousy with amazing culture, great cuisine, and lest we forget, wasabi. Contestants participated in events such as "food rallies," which saw them tasked with hunting down and scarfing as many of Nagoya's awesome local dishes as possible in the allotted time; "photo battles," which challenge them to find local landmarks and take selfies with them; and more such silliness. The season 3 winner was Filipino actor and singer Khalil Ramos, who outperformed all others to become the first from his country to win the competition, and who got to perform with Boys and Men at the Nagoya Dome for thousands of screaming fans as a reward for his victory.

American audiences have been enjoying the athletic competition show "American Ninja Warrior" for years now, but some may not know that the series is based on a popular Japanese series — "Sasuke," which was edited and presented as "Ninja Warrior" in the U.S. before the American competition was established. In Japan, "Sasuke" had a predecessor, a sister series that was more like a raging bully of a big brother: "Kinniku Banzuke," also known as "Unbeatable Banzuke" (and also known as "Muscle Ranking"), which similarly tested the strength, agility, and endurance of its competitors, only in much more hardcore fashion. Sure, "Ninja Warrior" and its U.S. counterpart are certainly strenuous tests of competitors' mettle, but to really excel at some of the events of "Banzuke," it would really help for one to be, say, Spider-Man.

Take, for example, the challenge known as "Hand Walk" (seen above) in which contestants must navigate platforms, parallel bars, and stairs while walking (you guessed it) on their hands. Another event, titled "Power Island," saw contestants trying to field a 100-pound plastic ball as it careened down a slope; they then had to push it to the top and balance on top of it while negotiating a set path. Unsurprisingly, this event led to the end of the series; in 2002, two contestants sustained serious injuries to their spinal cords while partaking in this challenge. The incident caused the network to suspend the show while its safety policies were reviewed — a review that apparently didn't go well, for the series was canceled that year.