Japanese reality show has celeb and fan 'sleep together' on their first meeting

With a premise that seems straight out of a fanfiction story, this Japanese reality show is letting plebeians play house with a celebrity for seven days. The catch? There's only one bed.

Double Bed (ダブルベッド), a new reality show by the Japanese TV station TBS, released its first episode on Oct 24 and already has tongues wagging.

In the show, a celebrity is paired with a "commoner". The pair meet for the first time on the show and have to live together in an apartment, sharing a bed for the next seven days.

The pair is monitored throughout their stay by cameras stationed all around the house (save for the bathrooms), tracking their interactions over the week.

The first episode, which featured actor Atsuhiro Inukai, 25, and Long Mengrou, 24, followed the pair as they got to know each other, cooked a meal together and ended the day in their shared bedroom.

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Atsuhiro is best known for starring in the iconic Kamen Rider TV series and films, while Mengrou is an aspiring singer from Hunan, China.

While Japanese viewers took to Mengrou and found the show cute, viewers in her home country weren't exactly big fans.

The idea of the pair sleeping on the same bed had some of the more conservative Weibo users clutching their pearls.

Some Weibo users also questioned why Mengrou was presented as a non-celebrity and pointed out that she was a minor celebrity in China despite not being a household name in Japan.

In fact, Mengrou was the winner of Cinderella, a talent show broadcast on Chinese television in 2014 and has also released Japanese music under the stage name Ron Monroe.

Debates over Mengrou's celebrity status aside, an overwhelming majority of viewers were simply thirsting to be on the show.

Now, where do we sign up?

kimberlylim@asiaone.com