"30 Days of Forced Labor" (1998) One of the most notoriously evil episodes of "Yonimo Kimyona Monogatari" (Tales of the Unusual). Set in a near future where the death penalty has been abolished. A heinous murderer is arrested, but the sentence handed down is somehow just "30 days of forced labor." The murderer figures it will be a breeze, but that marks the beginning of horrific torture... A traumatizing piece of work that would be utterly impossible to broadcast today. You will be left speechless by its brutal ending. Yutaka Matsushige, familiar from "The Solitary Gourmet," plays a sadistic prison guard in Nazi-reminiscent military uniform.
30 Days of Forced Labor: Synopsis The title slipped my mind. I think it was probably "30 Days of Forced Labor"... The setting is a near future Japan where the death penalty has been abolished. That day, the verdict for a brutal criminal was about to be handed down. The charge was murder—specifically, a gruesome crime taking the precious lives of seven innocent citizens. The defendant was convinced he would receive the death penalty, and behaved insolently during the trial. Instead of expressing remorse, he uttered words slandering the bereaved families. "The defendant is sentenced to 30 days of forced labor." As soon as the judge read the verdict, the man let out a roar of joy. Despite murdering seven people, a prison term of only 30 days. Naturally, the man did not appeal, and the prosecution seemed satisfied with the verdict. When the man met with his girlfriend, he told her the details of the sentence. "I'll be back in a month, so wait for me until then." The man and woman exchanged smirks while looking at each other's faces.
And so the man's prison life begins. On the first day, for some reason, he was given an injection in his arm, but he didn't mind it as there were no particular physical abnormalities. Returning to his cell, a prison guard suddenly appears, followed by four attendants. "Starting today, I'm going to take care of you. Look forward to it." With that, the guard leads the man up to the rooftop. Feeling suspicious, the man was nevertheless obediently led along. As soon as they reached the rooftop, the man's arms were grabbed by the attendants, and he was tied to a pillory set up in the middle of the roof. "Alright, take off his shoes. A criminal has no right to wear shoes." At the guard's words, the attendants stripped the man of his shoes. The floor of the pillory, exposed to the scorching sun for a long time, was heated up enough to cause burns to bare feet. "Oh yeah, before you came here, you were wearing a necklace. You must feel lonely having it taken away. This is a present from me." Saying this, the guard poured plenty of water onto a black cord and wrapped it tightly around the man's neck. "I'll come get you when the sun goes down. Do your best until then." With that, the guard and the attendants left. Left behind, the man suffered from the sweltering heat, hunger, thirst, and the cord tightening sharply around his neck as the moisture evaporated. Yet, somehow, he managed to endure the first day. As the sun began to set, the guard and attendants appeared and released the man. "It's going to get much tougher from here on, so prepare yourself." The man felt a murderous intent toward the guard who said this with a smug smile, but he told himself he just had to endure 29 more days and get outside, spending the night in a cell without a futon.
From then on, torture disguised as labor was repeated every day. One day, his face was repeatedly held underwater until he lost consciousness, only to be revived with electric shocks in an endless cycle. Another day, he was beaten and kicked by the guard and attendants until his face was unrecognizable. Yet another day, he was subjected to alternating baths of cold and boiling water—it was a gruesome scene straight out of hell.
However, the man managed to hold on by carving the number of days into the cell wall every day, eagerly awaiting the day of his release, and swearing vengeance on the guard. And so arrived the night of the 29th day. "Tomorrow is the last day. Once I'm out in the world, I'm definitely going to kill that bastard. Even if I get caught, I'll be out right away anyway." With an overwhelming impulse in his chest, the man spent the night unable to sleep due to excitement. The next morning, the guard and attendants came to fetch the man as usual. But something was slightly different. "Today is the final day. I have a parting gift for you. Come along." Though feeling suspicious, the man obediently followed the guard since it was the last day, and the guard stopped in front of a single room. "Your final labor." Saying that, the guard opened the door, and an electric chair was prepared right before his eyes. Turning pale, the man screamed and desperately tried to resist, but was pinned down by the attendants and forced to sit in the electric chair. "These 30 days were quite fun. Don't hold a grudge against me in hell, see ya." With that, the guard flipped the switch on the electric chair. "Gyaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!"
Waking up with a fierce roar, the man found himself on the bed where he had been given the injection on the first day. Before he knew it, the man was tied to the bed and unable to move. A man wrapped in a white lab coat peered down at the face of the man, who was drenched in sweat and dumbfounded. "You may not know this, but Japan has abolished the death penalty. This is what was adopted as an alternative punishment." The man in the white coat continued while drawing a strange liquid into a syringe. "This drug acts on brain cells and has the effect of making you dream of experiencing 30 days of torture. However, only five minutes pass in the real world. In other words, we can subject the test subject to the mental and physical agony of undergoing 30 days of torture within just five minutes. Do you understand what this means?" As the man stood in shock, the man in the white coat snorted mockingly. "Your sentence was 30 days of forced labor. That means being administered this drug every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day, for 30 days. In terms of experienced time, that's 259,200 days. Roughly 710 years, I suppose." The man's face twisted rapidly. "Now, shall we continue?" The man in the white coat pointed the needle of the syringe at him. "N-No, stop it! Stop ittttttt!!!!!y"
― 30 Days Later ― A woman leaning against a bright red sports car in front of the prison, waiting for the man. "He's taking so long..." Behind the woman, who was smoking a cigarette and glancing at her watch, a man with white hair and hollow eyes walked past listlessly. (End) Sorry for making it long. I started empathizing with the criminal halfway through and came to hate the guard, so thinking that the guard never really existed in the first place and that the nightmare is about to repeat itself left a bad aftertaste.
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