Do you have a favorite comedian?
I love a duo called Diane, and I enjoy listening to their radio every week.
Mondays, when the radio airs, and Tuesdays and Fridays, when their YouTube updates, are days I really look forward to.
Back in the day I was quite the TV kid — mostly variety shows — recording all kinds of programs every day and watching them one after another.
Comedians were always my heroes, but I had never gotten this hooked on a specific act, listening to radio and videos every day.
I'm from Kansai, so I had known them for a long time as people who worked there — but a few years ago I happened to hear a radio clip on YouTube, and that was when I fell for them.
I never really had radio as a medium in my life, but listening to two people chat at their own pace, with no one interrupting, is really fun.
YouTube is similar — talk that unfolds around what they want to talk about is funny no matter how it goes, so it keeps you excited.
Even comedians who do great on TV often have a special attachment to radio, probably because the space lets them talk freely about whatever they like for as long as they want.
Radio is a relatively niche medium — which, flipped around, means that people who enjoy radio are fairly rare, no matter which comedian it is.
Take Ariyoshi, or Bananaman — they thrive on TV and have also kept radio going for years as something they care about.
Plenty of people say they like Ariyoshi / are fans of Ariyoshi, and his Twitter following in Japan is top-tier — but even among them, probably not even one in ten listen to the radio.
The impression of Ariyoshi held by people who enjoy him on TV and by people who enjoy him on radio must be completely different.
With Diane too, I feel the two on TV and the two on radio are different things.
They're still not that well known in Tokyo especially, so I assume almost everyone who counts as a fan right now is a radio listener.
The comments full of fan love under Diane's YouTube videos are hilarious, and the postcard regulars on their radio are hilarious too.
It's a happy thing when not only the act itself but the community around it is appealing.
Sharing the context of topics the two talk about freely, and getting excited with other fans, is fun.
Who someone really is barely comes through from partial talk and behavior on TV alone, so becoming a fan can be hard.
Shibata, who I've been trading voice messages with on stand.fm (now a podcast), is a fan of Hikaru Ijuin and has apparently been listening to his radio for over twenty years. (※ Update: that project has ended.)
I only know Ijuin from seeing him on variety shows, so from Shibata's point of view I must look completely different.
By the way, Shibata isn't especially eager to meet Ijuin — but after the radio's laugh-guy writer retired, the new laugh role hasn't quite clicked, so he's written that maybe he could do that role himself. A hardcore fan. Really funny.
(In that context he also goes into how, when you contact someone you're interested in, it's better if you can picture a trade of mutual pros and cons. If you're curious, start here.)
Now, the TV show I'm most looking forward to right now.
Lately I've started using TVer. Mostly Kansai variety. The one I'm most into is called "Yasutomo no Itatte Shinken Desu."
Hosted by the female comedy duo Kaihara Yasuyo & Tomoko, it mainly invites comedians as guests and looks back on their careers in entertainment.
For anyone who doesn't know: Kaihara Yasuyo & Tomoko are a sister act with huge support in Kansai (especially from women — my mother loves them too). Put simply, they're like a female version of Nakagawa-ke.
What's fun about this show? Their ability to draw people out is incredible.
On ordinary talk shows, energy gets prioritized and they often fail to pull the story out.
But these two have a pure curiosity about knowing the other person at heart — so of course they tease and land laughs, but they don't cheaply mock or cut someone off mid-thought.
So for example, when someone is telling a story on a talk show and things heat up for some reason, I often think "I wanted to hear that through to the end..." or "Don't joke past this — I want to know more of how this person thinks." With Yasutomo, they really draw that part out, and I'm moved every time. The show has relatively high freedom and is meant to bring out character, so it feels fairly close to radio.
One scene that stuck with me: when Torosamon, a duo I love, were guests, there was a story about how in their early days the boke, Kubota, sent a passionate letter to the tsukkomi, Murata.
Looking back it's an overheated letter, but the hosts didn't mock it — if I remember roughly, they said something like "This is so Kubota. I don't think he's changed," and were impressed by what it said.
I was simply moved by the relationship between the two of Torosamon, so I thought that was exactly right.
And Yasutomo said something like, "Our show's a bit different, huh. If it were male hosts it'd be 'What is this!!' and a big roar, but we just went 'That's nice' (laughs)."
That's exactly it — and that's why I like it, and why guest comedians always look happy. Kubota himself, surprised by their reaction, said he felt like crying from how glad he was.
Part of it is that Yasutomo's character and communication skills are outstanding, and as they say, there may also be something about male and female tendencies.
Neither is better or worse — men might tend to over-prioritize energy and tempo, while women might read the other person's thoughts and move the conversation with empathy.
(Needless to say, this isn't really about gender — it depends on the person.)
When I go out to eat with someone, I always want to hear what they're thinking — not just fragmented info — more than making the table roar in the moment.
I like chatting itself, but I like listening to the other person's thoughts, sharing mine, and slowly stacking up real dialogue.
This might be a bit of a leap, but studying something like coaching might open up new discoveries.
(That said, the grand-sounding word "coaching" still feels off to me — even if I learned it, saying "How about some coaching?" wouldn't bring anyone in.)
Even outside jobs you picture as dialogue-based — coaching, counselors, and so on — it all comes down to communication, so you can probably raise that skill anywhere.
Tweet© 2021 ZUUHE