Man, I wish we could have shows like this on american tv. I mean, WTF? How come television stations in Japan can humiliate and cause mental, emotional, and physical suffering to their contestants and not worry about lawsuits while tv stations here shit bricks for fear of something like this? I mean, it's not even like they're subjecting the kids to hilarious torture or something....though it might cause me to actually watch the show if they were. If you can't abuse and humilate people on tv, where can you do it? It's time to pass some fairly draconian laws to limit lawsuits so I can watch people suffer in a humorous fashion in English.
On a sidenote, maybe it was inevitable but some people have gotten together to do their own amateur version of Silent Library. I stumbled over one of the videos on youtube while looking for the original and thought I'd link it here. I haven't taken a look at it yet, but I'm all for college students making fools of themselves. It's sweet like a baby's tears.