'Miteru Dake' DVD claims to cure shyness

The featured guys give you a sense of what Japanese women find attractive in 2010. (Video from YouTube user avexnetwork)

Buzzfeed recently uncovered the Japanese video series "Miteru Dake" ("Just Looking") -- where viewers stare into the eyes of silent people staring back at them from the screen. The idea is to help shy Japanese youth practice eye contact at home so they can form greater human bonds in real life.

The blog clast of Japanese ad firm Diamond Agency explored the original DVD series for men back in July 2008 where writer Jeff Lippold accurately called the DVD's videos "strangely disconcerting." The clips on YouTube showed a few (very chesty) models staring blankly at the camera for seconds before saying a single line at the end. This was either a knock off of Andy Warhol's screen tests or an extremely weird experiment in social therapy. The producers claim the latter.

The series comes from media giant Avex Trax -- a company better known for its loud Eurobeat J-Pop than social charity work. Our guess is that Avex had lots of young models, actors and singers in their management company stable who needed a bit of screen time. And surely the thousands of social outcasts who purchase "Miteru Dake" will fall in love with those models after so much eye contact.

Although these videos aim to assist extreme introverts, we hope said introverts do not get the impression that normal social activity involves silently staring into the eyes of the opposite sex for minutes on end. They will be no doubt healed when they realize one day, "Wow, these videos are creepy."

The "Miteru Dake for lady" DVD is ¥2,980.