"Manzai–Eine japanische Form der Stand-up-Comedy"

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 12th, 2007

This is the title of a book by Berlin-born Till Weingaertner, a graduate student at Kansai University Graduate School of Sociology. It’s his doctoral thesis, a comprehensive survey of Japanese humor, and he knows of what he writes– as part of his study of comedy in Japan, Weingaertner and a fellow Kansai student performed as part of a “manzai” team.

…Weingaertner defines manzai by quoting Japanese researchers, introduces the history of the comedy genre and explains its relationship to Osaka. Weingaertner also explains the manzai roles of “boke,” the person who plays the foolish and funny comedian, and “tsukkomi,” the straight man who corrects the boke’s misinterpretations.

Sounds like Abbott (tsukkomi) & Costello (boke).

Of course, readers of this magazine are already somewhat familiar with some of these terms. In November of 2004, we ran two items on Japanese comedy, one dealing with manzai, one dealing with rakugo. (The latter term referring to a form of Japanese performance that is essentially sit-down story-telling with serious punchlines. As we all know, “alternative” is devilishly hard for most Japanese folks to pronounce, thus the term “rakugo.”)

Weingaertner has plans to inject manzai into the entertainment scene of his native Germany, where comedians, he says, aren’t as popular as they are in Japan.

He says Japan has a rich comedy culture, which varies from rakugo or manzai to the ancient comedy of kyogen.

“I realized how well comedy has been received in Japan,” Weingaertner said, noting that young male comedians are often surrounded by crowds of squealing young female fans and that popular comedians often appear in TV commercials.

For more insights like this one, read the whole thing in Daily Yomiuri Online.

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