Manzai by unknown artist - wittig collection

is a traditional style of comedy in

Japanese culture The culture of Japan has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Historical overview The ances ...

comparable to

double act A double act (also known as a comedy duo) is a form of comedy originating in the British music hall tradition, and American vaudeville, in which two comedians perform together as a single act. Pairings are typically long-term, in some cases fo ...

comedy or

stand-up comedy Stand-up comedy is a comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of one-liners, stories, ...

. usually involves two performers ()—a

straight man The straight man is a stock character in a comedy performance, especially a double act, sketch comedy, or farce. When a comedy partner behaves eccentrically, the straight man is expected to maintain composure. The direct contribution to the c ...

() and a funny man ()—trading

joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

s at great speed. Most of the jokes revolve around mutual misunderstandings,

double-talk Double-talk is a form of speech in which inappropriate, invented, or nonsense words are interpolated into normal speech to give the appearance of knowledge, and thus confuse or amuse the audience. Vaudevillian Cliff Nazarro, for instance, would s ...

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

s and other verbal gags. In recent times, has often been associated with the

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

region, and comedians often speak in the

Kansai dialect The is a group of Japanese dialects in the Kansai region (Kinki region) of Japan. In Japanese, is the common name and it is called in technical terms. The dialects of Kyoto and Osaka are known as , and were particularly referred to as ...

during their acts. In 1933,

Yoshimoto Kogyo is a major Japanese entertainment conglomerate. It was founded in 1912, Osaka, as a traditional theatre, and has since grown to be one of the most influential companies in Japan, employing most of Japan's popular owarai (comedy) talent, produci ...

, a large entertainment conglomerate based in Osaka, introduced Osaka-style to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

audiences, and coined the term "" (one of several ways of writing the word in Japanese; see below). In 2015, Matayoshi Naoki's manzai novel, , won the

Akutagawa Prize The is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner receives from the media, it is, along with the Naoki Prize, one of Japan's most sought after literary prizes. History Th ...

. A mini-series adaptation was released on Netflix in 2016.

History

Originally based around a festival to welcome the

New Year New Year is the time or day currently at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system ...

, traces its origins back to the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japan ...

. The two performers came with messages from the gods and this was worked into a standup routine, with one performer showing some sort of opposition to the word of the other. This pattern still exists in the roles of the and the . Manzai

Continuing into the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, the style focused increasingly on the humor aspects of stand-up, and various regions of Japan developed their own unique styles of , such as , , and . With the arrival of the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, began to implement changes that would see it surpass in popularity the styles of the former period, although at the time was still considered the more popular form of entertainment. With the end of the Taishō period,

Yoshimoto Kōgyō is a major Japanese entertainment conglomerate. It was founded in 1912, Osaka, as a traditional theatre, and has since grown to be one of the most influential companies in Japan, employing most of Japan's popular owarai (comedy) talent, produci ...

—which itself was founded at the beginning of the era, in 1912—introduced a new style of lacking much of the celebration that had accompanied it in the past. This new style proved successful and spread all over Japan, including Tokyo. Riding on the waves of new communication technology, quickly spread through the mediums of

stage Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper * Sta ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

, and eventually,

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, and

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedbac ...

Etymology

The

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

for have been written in various ways throughout the ages. It was originally written as , using rather than the alternative form of the character, , and the simpler form for (which also can be used to write a word meaning "talent, ability"). The arrival of brought another character change, this time changing the first character to .

and

Similar in execution to the concepts of "funny man" and "

" in

comedy (e.g.

Abbott and Costello Abbott may refer to: People * Abbott (surname) *Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921), American painter and naturalist * Abbott and Costello, famous American vaudeville act Places Argentina * Abbott, Buenos Aires United States * Abbott, Arkansas ...

), these roles are a very important characteristic of . comes from the verb which carries the meaning of "senility" or "air headed-ness" and is reflected in the 's tendency for misinterpretation and forgetfulness. The word refers to the role the second comedian plays in "butting in" and correcting the 's errors. In performances it is common for the to berate the and hit them on the head with a swift smack; one traditional prop often used for this purpose is a pleated paper fan called a . Another traditional prop is a small drum, usually carried (and used) by the . A Japanese bamboo and paper umbrella is another common prop. These props are usually used only during non-serious routines as traditional requires there to be no props in terms of routine and in competitions. The use of props would put the comedy act closer to a ''

conte Conte may refer to: * Conte (literature), a literary genre * Conte (surname) * Conté, a drawing medium * Conte, Jura, town in France * Conté royal family, a fictional family in Tamora Pierce's Tortallan world * Conte, the title of Count in Italy ...

'' rather than ''manzai''. The tradition of and is often used in other

Japanese comedy is a broad word used to describe Japanese comedy as seen on television. The word ''owarai'' is the honorific form of the word ''warai'' (by adding o- prefix), meaning "a laugh" or "a smile". ''Owarai'' is most common on Japanese variety show ...

, although it may not be as obviously portrayed as it usually is in .

Notable acts

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

* Cocorico *

Takeshi Kitano is a Japanese comedian, television presenter, actor, filmmaker, and author. While he is known primarily as a comedian and TV host in his native Japan, he is better known abroad for his work as a filmmaker and actor as well as TV host. With th ...

; Japanese film director, television host, and former performer in the group "Two Beat". is mentioned and referenced in a number of his other works.

Literary associations

* Kikaku wrote with affectionate mockery a

haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a '' kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a '' kigo'', or ...

on the dancers: "The New Year Dancers / Never miss a single gate – / Millet for the crane". *

Buson was a Japanese poet and Painting, painter of the Edo period. Along with Matsuo Bashō and Kobayashi Issa, Buson is considered among the greatest poets of the Edo Period. He is also known for completing haiga as a style of art, working with ha ...

more positively wrote: "Yes, New Year's dancers – / Pounding good and properly, / The dirt in Kyoto".L Zolbrod, ''Haiku Painting'' (1982) p. 16

References

External links

What is Manzai
2015 archive

by Xavier Benjamin Bensky. A study in the cultural effects of ''manzai''. {{Authority control Comedy genres Culture in Osaka Japanese comedy Performing arts in Japan Stand-up comedy