Why Takafumi Horie asserts that “the high viewership ratings for the M-1 Grand Prix reflect the poor language skills of Japanese people” The preliminaries for the M-1 Grand Prix, which can now be considered a national end-of-year event, have begun this year, but Takafumi Horie says, “To be honest, I find M-1 boring,” and “Even when the audience is laughing, I can’t laugh at all.” Why is this happening? We present an edited excerpt from Horie’s new book, “The True Nature of Japanese Society: Investment, Money, and the Future.” M-1 Grand Prix and Language Ability The M-1 Grand Prix decides the pinnacle of manzai comedy. Even as people are increasingly turning away from television, this is a hugely popular program that achieved high viewership ratings of 28% in the Kansai region and 17.2% in the Kanto region for the 2023 tournament*1. The winning duo will rise to stardom overnight. It could be called a national event. But I’ve been thinking this for a while, and to be honest, I think M-1 is boring. Even if the audience is laughing, I can’t laugh at all. Am I being cynical? I don’t think so. The cause lies in the basic structure of manzai. The basic structure of manzai is a “comfortable betrayal.” The boke makes an unexpected statement, surprising the audience. If the joke is too outlandish it will be difficult to understand, so even if it is outlandish, keep it within the realm of understandability. The role of the tsukkomi is to correct the outlandish remark. In fact, at this moment, he is indicating to the audience, “He made a joke = the previous comment was a joke = this is funny.” It’s like he’s subtly teaching you what to laugh at. Comedians who win the M-1 competition use words that are as easy for the audience to understand as possible, and create material that is cleverly designed to subvert the audience’s expectations. However, it is precisely because of this technical structure that people with advanced language skills are able to understand what the comedian is aiming at. In other words, the continuation of the dialogue and the punchline pattern can be predicted to a certain extent. The basic structure of manzai is a pleasant betrayal. This means that for those who can predict what will happen next, betrayal itself does not exist. That’s why I don’t find manzai funny. Furthermore, M-1 is the highest level competition in the manzai world, where comedians compete to come up with the most refined “comfortable betrayal.’’ But the more sophisticated it is, the more technical it becomes, and the easier it is to analyze and predict its structure. For those with advanced language skills, it becomes even less enjoyable. If you like comedy, you’ve probably often found the material of young or unsuccessful comedians to be boring. This is largely because they have the experience they have gained from watching a lot of comedy, and are able to predict their jokes and punchlines. For me, that’s the situation even if I’m a finalist in M-1. On the other hand, M-1 remains as popular as ever. It gets the crowd laughing every year. On the other hand, this may be evidence that there are few people with strong language skills in Japan. The high viewership could also be seen as a reflection of the poor language ability of Japanese people. Just to be clear, I don’t dislike comedy. I love the skits by Yoshio Kojima, who made a big splash with his line “That doesn’t matter,” and Hamburger Master, played by Speedwagon’s Jun Idota. Their material is different from the structure of the “Comfortable Betrayal’’ that is popular in M-1, but that’s a good thing. Rather, the unpredictable laughs that come from free thinking and don’t fit into the mold of manzai are more to the taste of people like me. I understand that for comedians, the M-1 Grand Prix is a necessary stage for future success. However, I feel that the comedy world will reach a plateau if it only relies on M-1-style comedy. In fact, the Japanese comedy that is accepted worldwide is material that would never be appreciated at the M-1 Grand Prix. For example, many people will know that Yasumura, who is always cheerful, was a huge hit at the popular British TV show “Britain’s Got Talent.” He later appeared on the popular American television show America’s Got Talent (AGT), where he also garnered laughter. The TT Brothers, played by Chocolate Planet, also had the AGT audience in stitches. Their art transcended language barriers and was recognized worldwide. I feel that in the future, it will be comedians who choose not to pursue M-1 Grand Prix-style humour who will support Japanese comedy in the future.
Ah, there it is, some old man pretending to be a sociologist who wants to say that Japanese people are like this based on the phenomena happening in society lol.
To summarise it with my excellent Japanese skills, it means that male comedians (only good-looking ones at that) should take off their clothes to get laughs.
People with zero knowledge can say all sorts of things about comedy. Even a kindergartener can pretend to be a comedy critic. Conversely, comedy critics have the intelligence of a kindergartener.
People who comment on things like the M-1 Grand Prix also have poor language skills. Ordinary people don’t understand that sort of thing and can’t comment on it.
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