Housei Abducted by Mafia (Denpa Shonen Clip)

Giving this its own thread vs putting it in the Compilation thread because it’s such a rare find. It was just uploaded to Youtube today. Denpa Shonen was an extreme reality TV show featuring various challenges. Housei was on it a number of times in a series where he’d be "trying to be rid of his his hetare (coward/loser) image". Such as facing up against a tiger in Thailand, pretending to be dead meat to a Condor in South America, joining the bull running festival in Spain and I think something involving a jungle snake. But I’ve never found anything other than the "Chupacabra" bat hunt in Mexico one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IDe7Ne3unA

I don’t think this is the full episode but a recap of it perhaps. Anyway this is the one where he goes to Rome to confront the Mafia. First they send him to wander outside a train station where drug dealers often are present. The only protection he has is bulletproof vest and an alarm. He can’t speak Italian so they don’t really know what he’s saying. One of them gets impatient and reaches for his bag, Housei notices there’s a pistol in the bag and flees. Later they send him to a known hideout for the Mafia in Sicily with a hand-held camera and a placard saying something along the lines of "I want to be a man". A few of the men take him away by car, the staff follow behind but somehow lose track of him. Housei’s camera is still recording though where the men are tormenting him with a Russian Roulette style game, pointing a gun point blank at him and then pulling the trigger. Thankfully it was all blank bullets, but you can tell Housei is absolutely terrified and shaking with fear. Really disturbing… Eventually the men say "You’re now a man" and Housei tries to convey his gratefulness in English as they let him go. "Sankyuu" I assume is "Thank you" (don’t think he had studied much English yet) whilst "Yay yay yay" is a catchphrase he often did back then in the 90s.

Such a great find, soudou! I’d asume this show was from the late 90’s or early 00’s since I saw a very young Yamasaki :lol:
I would like to see this show make a comeback on Japanese TV, but since it was really extreme, I doubt it would ever get aired (Unless it’s aired from midnight).

I’ll try to search the Chupacabra one, tough is actually just a urban legend (Trust me, I’m a mexican :D)

Check it out! I found the Chupacabra one on YouTube. It was the first result I got when I put ‘‘進ぬ!電波少年 山崎邦正’’ on Google, there are more videos tough.

[video:s0md87si]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR5yl-Rwg3k[/video:s0md87si]

[quote="VideogameDC":damdxg8y]Such a great find, soudou! I’d asume this show was from the late 90’s or early 00’s since I saw a very young Yamasaki[/quote:damdxg8y]

Yeah think he did all this in the 90s. Shame so much of it is missing.

[quote:damdxg8y]I’ll try to search the Chupacabra one, tough is actually just a urban legend (Trust me, I’m a mexican :D)[/quote:damdxg8y]
The Chupacabra one is easy to find fortunately (was gonna give you the youtube link but you already found it whilst I was writing this :lol: ), it’s all the other stuff he did that is tough to find online. I think that one was more done for a laugh really complete with silly costumes and props :rofl: He gets really grossed out in the bat caves though.

But it looks like Yamasaki only make like 6 challenges (The chupacabra one was the 6th one). Wonder how he was able to understand what the people said to him on his visit.

It sure looks like it :D
It seems he likes challenges like those on Denpa Shonen than any other Gaki member tho.

[quote="VideogameDC":2467l1l7]But it looks like Yamasaki only make like 6 challenges (The chupacabra one was the 6th one).[/quote:2467l1l7]
The Spanish bull-running one I think is on a Denpa Shonen DVD, so thats one option. But I’d love to see the others like the tiger/Thailand, condor/South America and snake (dunno where that was). It’s unfortunate they never seemed to release the rest.

[quote:2467l1l7]Wonder how he was able to understand what the people said to him on his visit.[/quote:2467l1l7]
There’s probably a translator amongst the staff for limited occasions, but for the most part the show threw the participants in the deep end without much knowledge and filmed how they overcome the language barrier.

Maybe because of the content of the program Nippon TV wasn’t able to release more of that show on DVD… Or maybe we have to search deeply on the web.

I’m thinking they were left on their luck on Mexico, tought Yamasaki seem to knew few things they were telling him (Like the guy who got the ‘‘chupacabra’’ bites on his body)