As you will know by now, we are both fascinated and highly amused by Japanese TV shows – in particular the hidden camera pranks. They do the most absurd things that you just could not get away with in any other country without being sued, but the Japanese take it all in the good humour that it was intended. This particular video is a compilation of pranks ranging from the classic “man hiding in a box dressed as a monster jumps out to terrify the victim” to the hilariously surreal, such as letting a Emu loose in a public toilets!

This funny video also features giant snow balls and boulders (made out of polystyrene or something similar). An old man gets the fright of his life as he sees a huge boulder rolling down the hill towards him, and a cyclist turns a corner and runs straight into one! The classic monster jumping out of the floor prank is made more amusing by the fact that one of the victims rips his coat as he falls, and as he shows the camera man the damage his friend duly makes the rip larger resulting in a slap to the face!

Something that you won’t see every day though is the Emu in the toilets. It stands behind this poor guy as he uses the urinal and peers over his shoulder – as you can imagine, he doesn’t hand around and puts his pecker away in lightening speed before it can get pecked!

This reasonably funny video perfectly demonstrates the difference between American/European TV and Japanese TV. If you tried any of these pranks in America I can guarantee that there would be huge lawsuits for physical and emotional damage as a result! In this particular video, it appears as though a Japanese man is interviewing some agents maybe, as they are all armed, when a sniper suddenly starts shooting them through the window. You can see by the reaction in the man’s face that he is genuinely terrified by the situation, and as one of the agents dies on top of him after being shot in the back, he makes a run for it and commando crawls to the exit. When he gets there the door is locked, and he curls up into an almost fetal like position no doubt progressing into a deeper state of shock! But, it doesn’t end there! Next 2 men burst through the room with flak jackets and firearms, and initially I thought they were faking a rescue, but I think they continue to torment him for a further minute! During the whole video there is a little headshot camera in the bottom right of the man being pranked, seemingly in a studio watching this being played back for the first time. He seems happy enough about it now, and I’m sure that this is just an average TV show in Japan!

Japanese TV shows are fantastic. For some reason they really make me laugh. They just seem to be able to get away with things over there which we simply could not do in this country without getting a huge law suit shortly after. Best of all, the contestants (or in this case the general public that are being pranked) always see the funny side when the prank is over.

This video uses large crowds of people to terrorise the unsuspecting. The first prank sees a huge crowd of people running down a narrow alley, normally resulting in the person being pranked running away from them in terror (apart from the first elderly man who seems completely oblivious to it all!). The second sees someone being surrounded and then thrown into the air. The final prank involves everyone slowly walking past the passer by, and then all hitting the deck at the same time, once again terrifying the prankee! Excellent.