Japanese culture is one of honour. This means, conversely, that it is necessarily a culture of shame for those who cannot meet these standards of honour. This is not a bad thing, however, because the power of this shame can be harnessed, and channelled into compelling prime-time television.

While in Australia we are fortunate to have many things, like Neighbours, funnel-web spiders and racism, one thing we do not have is compelling prime-time television. What is certain, needless to say, is that our Chinese friends from Japan do not share the same problem. This ingenuity is no surprise from the race that brought us The Baby Mop:

An example of this ingenuity on television is the groundbreaking Japanese game show, 男人的夢想游戲, which I think is roughly translated as “Sexually Objectifying Women While A Group Of Men Carry Out Ridiculous Tasks That Demean All Involved”, which consists largely of sexually objectifying women while a group of men carry out ridiculous tasks that demean all involved.

This is just as awesome as it sounds, as men carry out various challenges to try to see a woman naked. One involves a man throwing a ball at panels that are hiding a woman having a shower. The catch is that they must do so while on a slippery slide that angles down into a pool filled with, depending on the mood of the shows loveably sleazy and eccentric host, hot water, cold water, mud or if he’s feeling playful, boiling squid ink. The thrower is also tied to elastic that pulls him back down the slide and towards the pool, and he is also, for some reason, wearing only underwear.

Straight away I know what you’re thinking – genius. But it doesn’t end there. Every time the guy actually knocks out all the panels, the camera jumps, and in the shower instead of the attractive girl is this weird naked bald guy who then slides down with his legs up into the man who threw the ball and his team-mates. Hilarity inevitably ensues.

Meanwhile, in Australia, we have fucking Masterchef. This is a television show, as far as I can understand it, in which the audience is subjected to having to watch people cook meals. That’s it. Watching people cook. Or try another popular prime-time Australian show, The Biggest Loser, where the audience is made to watch extremely fat people in their underwear. And it's not even in a freakshow way, where the fatties are humiliated, an idea which might have potential; they're just trying to make a point about a healthy lifestyle. All this, when we could be watching guys try to see women shower and fall in boiling squid ink. What madness!

There is another challenge on that Japanese show involving a tank of water (boiling, of course) and a woman sitting on a stool wearing a bikini (obviously several sizes too small for her). The task requires the man (naturally in his underwear) to touch a sensor pad at the bottom of the tank of boiling water for the longest possible amount of time. His team-mates often are kind enough to assist him, usually by holding his head underwater or sitting on him. This sensor pad (now this is the genius part), is linked to the stool on which the girl is sitting, so that when it is activated the stool rocks from side to side, which in turn moves the girls body, leaving her scantily clad breasts little choice but to jiggle merrily.

While we are stuck watching The Block, the lucky fuckers in Japan are seeing jiggling boobies and a guy trying to rub ice on his burning skin. I mean, come on! Now The Block takes awful television to a new low. I know that to say something is like watching paint dry is a cliché for boredom, but watching people paint is getting way, way too close for comfort. Give me Japanese television any day! Even when the Japanese do a cooking show in Iron Chef, at least it has a host who feels the need to have a sword and bite capsicums, but feels no need to explain the presence of either of these things. Iron Chef  was on Australian TV, but not on a commercial channel, and certainly not prime-time.

We should have a show like they have in Japan called Silent Library, where participants must sit around a table in a library while performing humiliating and painful challenges, all the while trying to remain silent. Challenges include such brilliance as sitting on a pin, an old man taking his teeth out and nibbling your neck, or even having someone drive a remote control car into your forehead. You can’t write this stuff! It’s pure inspiration, and we need it over here before Channel Ten reach the logical conclusion of their reality television programming and release a show where each week contestants must compete for who can take the biggest shit. In fact, that’s what the show could be called: The Biggest Shitter.

Or, MasterShit.

Or maybe even, So You Think You Can Shit.

Kill me before that happens.