But his appearance was about more than …

But his appearance was about more than ticking an item off his bucket list, he said. He has spoken openly about his biracial background — his mother is Japanese, and his father is Beninese — and he viewed “Terrace House” as another opportunity to use his celebrity to help erase stigmas in Japan, where notions of racial purity persist. “It was a big deal for me,” he said. “And ‘Terrace House’ is a show where diversity has become really normal.” These days, even the show’s most trivial story lines — a drive to the shore, a tiff between housemates, a group outing to the new ramen restaurant — seem oddly reassuring. In an uncertain world, “Terrace House” now feels rooted to a bygone era as fans like Hachimura, and so many others, wait for their own lives to return to some sort of normalcy.