Recently, I enjoy my favorite radio programs such as “Ogiyahagi no meganebiiki”, “Audrey no all night Nippon”, and “Okamura Takashi no all night Nippon”.
I’ve been very excited by Audrey lately above all. Audrey is one of the famous Manzai duos in Japan. (FYI, Manzai is a genre of Japanese comedy which is performed by two people's dialogue.) The comedy duo is a finalist of M-1 GP which is the highest Manzai competition seven years ago. They surprised us with an epochal Manzai style “Zure Manzai” at that time. “Zure” means a gap in Japanese. Normally, Manzai is made of two parts, “Boke” and “Tsukkomi”. Boke is a performer who pretends to be funny with misunderstandings, jokes etc. whereas Tsukkomi reacts to the Boke's comments to point out its misunderstandings with using comical verbal abuse. Usually, these two parts have some sort of consistency, but it is displaced by Boke's comments little by little in Audrey's Manzai. The gap which is made by displacing consistency makes their Manzai funny and revolutionary. Then, they established a strong presence in Japanese comedians.
I think that they are still developing their comedy skills to a next stage even now because I can often find their challenges to get to a new field as a laughmaker when I listen to their radio program. Sometimes, those are just stupid, and we can’t laugh at them at all, but it is also a fact that we can’t disaffirm them completely because we find many potentials which no one has tried in Audrey's challenges at the same time. Especially, Wakabayashi, Tsukkomi's name, seems to keep honing his own sense of comedy. I often find Wakabayashi's insights for his view of comedy in his speech, and I admire him. That's why I listen to their radio program. I hope to see a new style of comedy.