Takashi Wakasugi’s offbeat sense of humor helps him pay the bills.
After moving from Japan to Australia, Wakasugi decided he would combine his passion for comedy with the need to improve his English.
“So I tried [stand-up comedy] and I loved it,” she says.
Mr. Wakasugi now performs stand-up around the country, using this Western performance style to unpack and poke fun at his Japanese identity.
In one set, for example, he laments how his Japanese obsession with cleanliness means he can’t watch the Lord of the Rings movies without wondering when the characters last brushed their teeth.
“F*** shampoo, Gandalf!” pina, before adding: “I’m so Japanese.”
Takashi Wakasugi says there are some big differences between Australian humor and Japanese humor. (Provided by Takashi Wakasugi)
But when asked to sum up the humor of his homeland, there’s no easy answer: A country’s humor is complex, layered and, in Japan’s case, very opaque to the outside world.
“I think the most popular response to what Japanese humor is: it’s physical and quirky,” says Wakasugi.
Say it again: “curious.”
So what exactly is Japanese humor and how did it develop over the centuries?
An erotic comic diva
For Tomoko Aoyama, associate professor of Japanese at the University of Queensland, one of the earliest figures in the history of Japanese humor is not a person, but a goddess.
Meet Ame-no-Uzume: erotic-comic performer and shamanic trickster. (Getty Images)
In the Shinto religion of Japan, Ame-no-Uzume is the goddess of humor, or as Professor Aoyama calls her, “a diva.”
“[She was] Japan’s first shamanist and erotic comic performer,” Professor Aoyama says on ABC RN’s Late Night Live.
peculiar things
Ame-no-Uzume appears in the 8th century texts Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, which recount mythology and history.
In one story, the sun goddess Amaterasu retreats to a cave and the world descends into darkness. Cue Ame-no-Uzume, who uses an erotic-comic dance to ask her out. She succeeds and the light is restored.
In Professor Aoyama’s eyes, this “diva” rescued the world of laughter.
He says the goddess of humor is “brave and powerful” and by having no taboos about sex or her body “is very different from the stereotypical image of Japanese women”.
‘Hilarious and iconoclastic’
Australian Roger Pulvers is an author, translator, playwright, filmmaker and reporter, who has lived mainly in Japan since 1967.
Mr Pulvers says contemporary Japanese humor is centuries old. Its origins date back to the Edo period, which began around 1600.
Back then, he mastered raunchy comedy.
“You had an incredibly dark sense of humor, broad and in-your-face with satires and obdurate stories.”
He cites the work of Edo artist Katsushika Hokusai, famous for the print The Great Wave off Kanagawa, whose manga sketches included “people in all kinds of positions.”
But he says that when Japan entered its modern period, beginning with the Meiji Restoration in 1868, things changed.
“The Japanese took their social conventions mainly from Victorian England: social conventions became very rigid and full of propriety and decorum.”
This Victorian sensibility has been propagated to this day.
“So a lot of Japanese humor is like British humor for that reason. It’s crazy and iconoclastic because it’s trying to break the surface of these very rigid outer social conventions that most Japanese people follow.”
Mr Pulvers says humor continued to evolve in the 20th century, but in ways that outsiders may not understand or appreciate.
He cites the 1953 film Tokyo Story and other works by filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu.
“In the West they’re seen as super serious and zen… However, I see them as comedies of manners. They’re very whimsical and tongue-in-cheek. The humor is very similar. [Samuel] Beckett or [Harold] Painter.”
Author Roger Pulvers says some critics are calling Tokyo Story “the greatest movie ever made.” (Wikimedia Commons)
He says there is also a more recent tradition of dark humor and satire. He mentions the writers Ango Sakaguchi, who was “very decadent and very funny”, and Yasutaka Tsutsui, who “attacks with great humor all the sacred institutions of society”.
Meanwhile, the appeal of erotic humor continues to this day.
“Remember, the Japanese are not Christians. And so they don’t have that kind of prudence. They have a sense of shame, of course, and in public there is always decorum and civility that must be maintained. But they “You’re not prude,” says Mr. Pulvers.
He also says there is a “nonsense and folly” that “provides a kind of safety valve for a very formal society”.
And sometimes “nonsense” is an understatement.
“Audiences want unrealistic things” on television and on stage
Today, international audiences often associate Japanese humor with some of their variety shows or game shows on television, which can be very exaggerated.
Often, the more outrageous, the better received.
“There’s physical punishment, beatings, really crazy things,” says Wakasugi.
He says that while Australian audiences want relatability and personal connection with mainstream television or stage comedy, many in Japan want to escape and be distracted from everyday life.
“[Japanese] the public wants unrealistic things… [Things] that people can’t or shouldn’t do in real life,” he says.
He says mainstream television and stage comedy are much more of a production, with “more performances” where “[individual] personalities are not that important.”
“Acting is a big part of Japanese comedy. If you don’t get it, you can’t laugh.”
So is there such a thing as stand-up in Japan?
“In Japan, stand-up is not popular,” says Wakasugi.
He says the closest equivalent is manzai, a traditional style of Japanese comedy that involves a live double act conversing.
One is straight (the ‘tsukkomi’), the other is exaggerated (the ‘boke’). Laughter ensues.
But Wakasugi says that while Australian stand-up is about “opinion, experience, points of view”, manzai is much more about “acting in character”.
misunderstood
Pulvers says Japanese humor can also be self-deprecating, drawing an unlikely parallel with the kind of humor he grew up with: Jewish humor.
“[Jewish humour] it is about self-crisis. And the Japanese sense of humor is also very self-deprecating and sardonic… They are very, very similar,” he says.
More Late Night Live stories:
“The difference is [Japanese people] They don’t want other people to know about the bad things in their society, because they want everyone to think well of them. Whereas the Jews wanted everyone to know everything about them and make them laugh, so that they were well prepared to [them] … The Jews hang their dirty linen out in public for all to see.”
Accordingly, he says that “if you really want to know the Japanese sense of humor, unfortunately, you need to speak Japanese.”
Professor Aoyama says it is not only the difficulty of translating Japanese humor but also “the unwillingness to translate”.
But he says “things are changing,” pointing to the work of prominent writers Hiromi Itō and Yoko Tawada, a Japanese writer who lives and works in Germany.
“They are widely translated and discussed… Both are notable for humor that crosses cultures and languages,” says Professor Aoyama.
“Sometimes I don’t laugh”
Mr. Wakasugi’s stay in Australia, immersed in the world of stand-up comedy, has passed.
“Before I started comedy in Australia, I loved Japanese comedy… Now if I watch Japanese comedy, sometimes I don’t laugh.”
Takashi Wakasugi says his attitude towards some mainstream Japanese comedy has changed. (Provided by Takashi Wakasugi)
Wakasugi says she is more aware of the sexism and racism that appears in some mainstream Japanese comedies.
“Japan is very traditional or conservative… But it’s changing.”
And the longer Mr Wakasugi spends in Australia, the more he finds himself embracing local stand-up.
“At first I was very surprised… [Now] I love seeing other comics,” he says.
“Australian humor is about personality and opinion. That’s what makes it so interesting.”
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