Is this the worst television show ever made?

If I have to know about it, so do you

Today’s newsletter comes to you from a particularly strange location. Sick of hotel rooms and writing hunched over my iPad like a gremlin, I decided to give a nearby internet café a go. 　

Japanese internet cafés don’t have much in common with those in Australia. They’re actually a little closer to a capsule hotel. For a fee you get access to a small room or booth with a computer, showers, a free drinks bar, UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO A SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM MACHINE, a manga library, and a few tasteful titty mags.

I’ve booked a small booth with a vinyl reclining lounge and computer for three hours - it cost ｍe just a bit over $15. But if I wanted to sleep here (which I certainly do not) a seven-hour stay would only be around $40. 

Now, I’m calling this a booth because it’s the polite thing to do. But right now, perched on a shelf above the computer screen, is a box of tissues. It haunts this space like an Edgar Allan Poe raven. Those tissues are there for a reason and I’m guessing it has nothing to do with the common cold.

I know it, you know it, the tissues CERTAINLY know it. This is a place where people sometimes masturbate. A wank box, if you will.

Sure, that’s not what they put on the pamphlets. And yes, many people come here to just work or kill time. But others come here to wank. That box of tissues (never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting) acts as an ominous reminder. While I’m here at least, this booth will have a reprieve. The only self-masturbatory thing happening in here is my writing. 

Inside the wank box

Now, what I should be doing is telling you about the incredibly moving week I’ve just spent in a remote mountain town. But it’s kind of hard to segway from wank-boxes to talking about the life-affirming, culturally expanding experience I’ve just had. So we’ll shelve that one for now.

Instead, let’s get a bit vulnerable. I’m going to confess something to you. Something I would rather not put in writing. But we’re all friends here, and I trust you. 

Okay. Here we go.

I watch anime. Yes, Japanese cartoons.　

To be clear, I’m not buying little figurines, or going to conventions or anything too weird. I’m mostly just watching wholesome adventures with strong female characters with unnecessarily big norks.

Okay? Okay.

Now, when you come to Japan, the shows you have access to on Netflix are a bit different to those in Australia. For one thing, there’s a much more expansive anime selection. One night, when I was too tired to go out, I decided to watch a couple of episodes of something new before going to bed. I spotted a series which seemed to be about a doctor and decided to give it a watch. 

What unfolded was some of the most batshit insane television I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop thinking about it - I need to share the burden.

The series (called Oshi no Ko) starts in a remote hospital. A male doctor, who’s probably in his 30s, discovers that his favourite 16-year-old idol is taking a break from music. He’s distressed by the news, so much so that one of the nurses tells him to get a grip. He’s then informed there’s a  patient waiting to see him. 

Guess – just guess – who that patient is. 

Yes, it’s the idol he’s obsessed with! The real reason she’s taking a break from the music industry? She’s heavily pregnant with twins. She won’t tell anyone who the father is, but let’s all hope it’s someone age appropriate. After some discussion the idol, her manager and creepy doctor all agree that the best thing for her to do is have the children in secret and then continue on with her career. 

A few days later and the idol is close to giving birth. The doctor is walking home from work when he’s stopped by an odd man lingering near the hospital. It transpires that he’s her stalker. The two men get into an altercation and the doctor is killed.

This, I think, would have been a great place to end the series. The doctor with an unhealthy obsession with a teenager is murdered. What a feel-good story. Roll the credits!

But no. That is not where this show ends. What actually happens is that the creepy doctor is reincarnated as the idol’s baby. With all his adult memories intact. 

This is where I should have stopped watching. I did not. When I ACTUALLY stopped watching was when the baby-doctor-adult was getting excited at the prospect of being breastfed. Because his mother was so hot. And you thought the wank tissues were the low point of this newsletter

I closed Netflix. I turned off my iPad. I stared at the wall for a moment. I turned my iPad back on and looked at the price of flights to see if I should return to Australia earlier than planned. 

But I didn’t. I stayed. And here I am, writing this newsletter in a wank box.

And here you are reading about it. 

Hopefully your week gets better. I’ll be in your inbox next Monday, and the Monday after that, and the Monday after that for nevermore.