IN TOKYO
LEARNING the art of communication from stand-up comics? It could only happen in Japan.
To be sure, stand-up comics have become a powerful force in Japan over the years. Starting with the "manzai" (stand-up comedy) boom of the 1980s, Japanese stand-up comics have grown to become prominent fixtures in the country's cultural and even political life.
Stand-up comics seem to be everywhere these days. They not only perform their well-rehearsed routines in purpose-built theatres in Osaka and Tokyo, but they also populate variety shows as well as drama programmes on television.
Some comedians have even moved into the political arena, serving in local assemblies as well as the national parliament.
It seems only a matter of time now before one will even appear in a Cabinet line-up.
Yoshimoto Kogyo, an Osaka-based firm blessed with a huge stable of stand-up comedians and considerable marketing know-how, has been largely responsible for making "manzai" a staple of Japanese entertainment.
Manzai has its roots in the Osaka area. The typical manzai team consists of two performers, one in the role of "boke" or funny guy, and the other in the role of "tsukkomi" or straight guy. They trade barbs and jokes at bullet-train speed in the Osaka dialect.
To understand why manzai is so popular, I once spent some time in the early 1990s studying the basics of the Osaka dialect in order to grasp what these stand-up comics were saying. Suffice it to say, that I am now an ardent fan of manzai.
Aspiring manzai teams are made to perform live in small theatres run by Yoshimoto, where their performances are ranked according to how many votes they get from the audience.
The topmost-ranked performers graduate to television shows or the Nanba Grand Kagetsu Hall in Osaka, also run by Yoshimoto, where a slate of the company’s most popular comedians perform throughout the day to packed audiences.
The manzai boom of the 1980s was sparked after the traditional art form was embraced wholeheartedly by national television.
One of the most popular manzai teams in the 1980s and 1990s was Downtown, whose caustic humour and risqué jokes were lapped up by young Japanese.
In the mid-1990s, Yoshimoto moved aggressively into Tokyo, opening small theatres in the Ginza and Shibuya districts for manzai performances. But they were closed after a few years due to lack of audience.
In 2001, Yoshimoto’s decision to open a theatre in a building right above Tokyo’s crowded Shinjuku Station proved to be a winning one. Fanned by a second manzai boom on television, young Japanese flocked to Yoshimoto’s new theatre.
To date, Yoshimoto has four theatres in Tokyo. It is also a sign that the erstwhile allergy in the capital towards the Osaka dialect has largely receded.
It should be noted that Tokyo too has produced some notable comedians, though they are considerably outnumbered by their Osaka rivals.
Noted film director Takeshi Kitano is also well known to the Japanese as Beat Takeshi, the name he used when he was part of a comedy duo.
At present, the most successful Tokyo comedy pair is undoubtedly Bakusho Mondai, who has proved equally adept at rapid-fire comedy and also at interviewing academics for public television or debating serious social issues on the tube with real lawmakers.
About three years ago, Yoshimoto embarked on a new venture – conducting manzai classes for people interested in learning more about the art form.
Yoshimoto also went on to develop classes for companies and educational institutions, using manzai to help people to learn how to communicate or to speak in front of others.
Students at these classes are paired off and given a rough script to work with. After they have fleshed out their scripts, they are given one minute each to try to get as many laughs as possible from the rest of the class. Communication skills are discussed during the post-mortem session led by a professional manzai team and a senior Yoshimoto writer.
In June, Yoshimoto conducted one of these classes for some 100 young bureaucrats at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
With the public increasingly critical of the bureaucracy for mismanaging the national pension system among other failures, and for wasting taxpayers' money, manzai skills seem to be the last thing that bureaucrats need to acquire at this moment.
Whatever will bureaucrats think of next?