Staff Room : Comedy Fans, Gather Up

Do sketch comedy shows even exist anymore? Shows where comedians just go out and do their bits — I can’t really picture one these days. Feels like it’s mostly panel-style variety shows now.

Right, and honestly that’s about all I see now.

Yeah, you really have to go looking for it now compared to before.

Back in the day there was Arabikidan, remember?

I loved Cuton so much (laughs). That weird original dance routine of theirs, I’ll never forget it.

I looked it up — Arabikidan ran as a regular show on TBS from 2007 to 2011. After that it kept popping up occasionally as a one-off special, in summer or around New Year’s. Apparently they even ran one again as recently as 2025.

Speaking of which, there’s actually a joke going around that “comedy itself isn’t trending” anymore (laughs).

Apparently when a comedian says something controversial, people joke that “it didn’t go viral because comedy just isn’t in the public eye that much anymore.”

Right, it does feel like they’re on every show. But then again, a lot of comedians upload their bits to YouTube now too, so maybe that’s where the audience has shifted. Some of them post almost every single day.

Okay, let me jump in here. I’m more of an old-school comedy person myself, so I don’t know a ton about current comedians, but I got into Kabe Poster through the show Detective! Knight Scoop. I noticed Nagami appearing as a detective on it, and that got me curious enough to start watching their manzai too.

I love Kabe Poster too!

Right, they’re great.

So first, there’s this opening catchphrase, “You’re absolutely right” — they say something that sounds like a relatable observation, and then get hit with “I never said that!” That’s the whole style. And on their radio show, they take submissions from listeners for that opening line each week based on a theme, mix in one written by Nagami himself, the straight man Hamada has to guess which one is Nagami’s. I really love that segment.

That sounds fun!

Like, when the theme is “stations,” you get something relatable like “You’re absolutely right, whether the bathroom is inside or outside the ticket gate can really change your fate sometimes.” But then when the theme is “dog sleds,” it goes all the way to something completely absurd like “You’re absolutely right, if a rakugo performer sat down on a dog sled and started a routine, his coat would end up abandoned in the middle of a snowfield.” The listeners’ sense of humor is honestly amazing.

Exactly, that’s exactly it. As for their actual bits, my favorite is one based on the “Yamanote Line Game” — that’s a Japanese game where you take turns naming things under a given category. So the theme is “stationery,” the straight man Hamada says “pencil,” and then Nagami immediately fires back with “magnifying glass” right out of the gate (laughs). He keeps throwing in answers that sit right on the edge of being correct, every single time.

I mean, you can technically buy a magnifying glass at a stationery store (laughs).

Right? So after a few rounds of that, someone says, “Okay let’s do Japanese prefectures, there’s definitely a clear right answer for that one.” And Nagami, who’s always pushing the boundary right from his first answer, says “Gifu Prefecture” (laughs). And Hamada goes, “Isn’t that kind of rude to Gifu? Like calling it ‘borderline prefecture’…” (laughs).

Right. It’s less about going for big energy and more about a real skill for getting laughs through nuance and the double meaning hidden in words.

I actually got into Kabe Poster recently too, and my way in was Nagami’s improv comedy. There’s this variety show hosted by Chihara Junior called “Chihara Junior’s Zaou,” and it’s incredibly fun — it’s a musical-chairs-style game where comedians compete with short bits.

Zaou is so good!

I watch it every week! I actually went to a live show they did at Budokan recently, and they answered at the exact same pace as on TV — I was shocked thinking, “Wait, they didn’t even cut anything!”

At Budokan scale it had more of a festival kind of energy, but pulling off that level of pace and that level of funny — it’s genuinely impressive.

Watching it live in person also has this fun, chaotic energy to it.

Maybe two or three times a year. Though this year I haven’t managed to go yet.

I’ve only gone to see Kabe Poster live a handful of times myself.

There really aren’t that many venues for live comedy. It’s mostly limited to Osaka or Tokyo, so unless there’s a national tour or a guest appearance somewhere, it’s hard to catch one in person.