For nearly five years, I've been on a mission to find a new reality TV show to fill the void left by Terrace House. It's sent me down a perilous spiral of trashy reality dating series and half-baked variety shows that weren't worth my finite time on this rock. This nostalgia-fueled trek is one I share with fellow members of the still-active Terrace House subreddit, who, following the devastating passing of cast member and Stardom wrestler Hana Kimura from cyberbullying that led to the show's end, is kept chiefly alive with retrospective support group posts, keeping up with the lives of past cast members, and a grape vine where members to swap recommendations for new shows like The Boyfriend, Love Wagon, or Netflix's latest show Badly in Love in hopes that anything might recapture its magic.
But the more I watch the newer crop of shows, the clearer it becomes that they keep mistaking volatility for romance, manufacturing blowups with only marginally amusing payoffs. And yet, even at their most chaotic or earnest, none of them has yet to come close to topping Terrace House: Boys & Girls in the City's infamous omurice incident. A TV moment that still occupies real estate in my frontal lobe.
What made Terrace House special?
One primary reason why Terrace House is often missed as a cultural touchstone is that it was a reality show that didn’t revolve around dramatic meet-cutes, romance, or a constant stream of contestants getting eliminated. Instead, the show’s premise centered on a group of young creatives—artists, models, fashion entrepreneurs, and musicians—cohabiting in lavish yet cozy Japanese houses. It's a show that brought prominence to artists like Lauren Tsai, a card-carrying Kojima Productions' scanned celebrity featured in Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, and Avian Ku, the fashion entrepreneur whose mother's store, 88tees, was prominently featured in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which was first given worldwide prominence from her time on the show.
Rather than being a reality series tightly controlled to manufacture big moments like Love Island, the participants stayed in the house as long as they wanted, leaving when they felt ready to embark on the next stage of their lives, whether that was romance or career. This approach created a more relaxed pace and fostered deeper engagement beyond superficial aesthetics and the sensationalism typically seen in reality TV, such as my current gyaru-meets-yankii reality TV vice, Badly in Love, which sensationalizes romance under the tight constraints of just two weeks. So far, its incidents, which have more often led to helicopter production management where even the hints of friction, like joking about smoking a joint or splashing water on each other, has led to folks getting kicked off the show or sternly warned (despite the premise of them being "bad boys" and "bad bitches" as a selling point). While romance was undoubtedly on the table on Terrace House, that was never its primary focus, so when it was, it was always worth investing in, regardless of whether it lasted beyond the confines of the show. And the zenith of the show's romance and drama, for Terrace House and all of reality TV, is the omurice incident.
The omurice incident
At the center of the omurice incident was fashion model Minori Nakada and hair stylist Tatsuya Uchihara. The two had feelings for each other. The only problem is that the latter spent forever refusing to own up to it. So, one morning, while making omurice—a technical egg-over-rice omelet staple in Japanese cuisine—Minori set aside a special bowl for "Uchi" to eat later. Only, instead of writing a cutesy message or illustration in ketchup as the dish is wont to have, she wrote "coward."
"Please eat and enjoy." (Image: Netflix)
It was a declaration of love and war that she'd later kee-kee with her roommates, who thought it was "perfect." After spending the better part of 14 episodes confiding in her roommates about how their romance had yet to take off, they wondered what he'd think of the passive-aggressive callout, saying "He'll think it's cute, but I'm sure it'll hit a sore spot" like "an arrow going through."
After cleaning his bowl and scratching his head with a faraway look in his eyes, Uchi finally mustered up the courage to knock on the door of the girls' room—a watershed moment for any and every scene in Terrace House— to chat with Minori. After failing to woo her with the old "lifting her chin" maneuver to seal their romance with a kiss to prove her wrong (everyone laughed in embarrassment), the girls cleared the room for an honest "what are we?" chat. It, too, failed to spark a conversation, leading him to leave the room and hash it out with his boys. The show's reaction panel of celebrities found their whole pussyfooting/ egging on of each other equal parts cute and lame. They also immediately (and rightfully) dubbed the moment "a legendary omurice."
(Image: Netflix)
This whole debacle ended with them finding each other and confessing their feelings, before turning an awkward handshake into the kiss that Uchi failed his QTEs on earlier, beginning their love life. Are they dating now? Fuck no. But this polite bit of mild romantic friction is still the best thing committed in reality TV by a long shot, closely followed by the show's equally infamous meat incident, which has led to whole essays being written about it.
For me, the omurice incident is up there with the Long Long Man Sakeru gum commercials as a stim that triggers the happy chemical in my brain whenever I reminisce about them. Hopefully, one day I'll come across a reality TV show that carries the same kind of awkward/wholesome, romantic bumble-king antics. But until then, the omurice incident remains king.
