Japan

More Murder in Japan: The Yuka Takaoka Story

(upbeat music)

Now, this story starts back in 2019.

And back in 2019, I followed
this story very closely.

It was not because it’s a
murder or it’s a salacious story.

It was actually the interesting part to me

was how the internet
reacted to this heinous event.

So the basic story is that back in 2019,
this girl attempts to kill her boyfriend.

She gets sentenced to attempted
murder and she goes to prison.

The internet reacted unusually
because she was attractive.

And that was the main reason.

You have someone who’s
committed a horrible act

and is getting treated very differently from
other people because they’re attractive.

The reason this is
sparked interest in me again

is because just recently,
she was released from prison.

And on Tokyo reporter,
they released a transcript

of the trial, some of the
questions and answers from 2019,

which is sort of an insight into
Japanese courts that we don’t normally get.

So I wanna go over a bit of the history of
the story, then we’ll read the transcript.

And just remember the
whole time Japanese men

on the internet are
white-niting this girl

so hard, they’re saying
that she’s innocent,

she shouldn’t be punished
because she’s too beautiful.

If she had been with me,
this wouldn’t have happened.

That was always the
part that was rolling around

in the back of my head, is that this
woman attempted to kill another human being

and they were willing to let
it go because she was cute.

And I think what made it one
of the things that made it worse

was the media was calling
her a real life yandere.

So that is the character in anime who
doesn’t show outward expressions of emotion.

She gets very jealous on the inside.

She loves very passionately.

In some anime, they would make it that
she would kill for the person she loves.

So they’ve made it already,
like she’s a character

in anime, appealing
to these anime nerds.

These guys who way, way overreacted.

And again, these people
who started making fan art

and started doing stuff on the internet
to say, she’s amazing, she’s wonderful,

she shouldn’t be punished
because she’s beautiful.

And she was just doing
this wonderful thing.

She was killing because of her jealousy,

but her jealousy was an
indication of how strongly she loves

and if she loved me, then this
would never have happened.

Let’s get back into reality,
characterizing someone

as an anime character would
certainly increase your interaction

rate on the internet, which is
what these people really want.

But it also puts up this
strange sort of relationship,

the meta relationship,
the internet creates,

where these people are like truly going
forward and attempting to defend her.

They set up like a GoFundMe style thing
to try to get her money for her defense.

They were trying to get her not
punished for attempted murder.

And the media didn’t help by creating this
atmosphere around her of this character.

And she had an Instagram
and that of course got blown up

because everyone wanted to
see more pictures of the pretty girl.

And in that, she did cosplay
of Yandere characters.

And they’re like, wow, this is just her
showing who she really is on the inside.

So I think really the thing
I was interested in was

all the bits of the story,
of course, because we’re all

interested in these sort
of like real crime stories.

But then there was also the
secondary aspect of this crime

and the person who committed it
were being fetishized the whole time.

And the internet audience was eating it up.

So you have Yuka Takoka, she
was working in a bar, a girls bar.

She became a manager, so she
was obviously quite good at it.

Girls bars, basically guys
come in, they pay money, they

pick a girl, the girl will
sit with them, they’ll talk.

That’s the base standard.

I mean, it implies a
certain level of sexuality.

There’s all these other like
other aspects to the relationship

of a hostess club where, you
know, you’ll go out on dates.

The dates are nonsexual,
but the man is expected to

give presents and pay money
and buy expensive things.

One of the scams, I don’t know if it’s a
scam because the people are going for it.

They kind of know what happens as well.

Is that on my birthday, let’s
say, I would go to the five men

who love me the most who come
to are my most regular customers.

And I tell them, I want
this very specific watch.

I want this very specific bag.

And I get five of those and then
I can return four and then keep

the one and say, “Oh, look
at this bag, you gave me.

I love it so much.

” But then I also got the cash
money for the other four bags.

So this is the kind
of relationship that is

created within the
hostess club atmosphere.

This is also what happens on the host side,

which is men basically manipulating
women into giving them money

for the exact same thing
that sort of may fake meta

love relationship, which
is what her boyfriend did.

Her boyfriend’s name was Phoenix Luna.

I can’t be his real name, but
that’s actually a pretty good name.

You know, I’m going to
name an anime character.

I might name him Phoenix Luna now.

Both the men and the
woman in this relationship

had this job where they
created relationships with

other people in order to
extrapolate money from them.

They moved in together.

Now, she was looking, this
is the version of the story.

She was looking at Luna’s
phone while he was in the shower

and she found pictures of him
with other women at the bar.

Now, remember, that’s his job to go
to the bar, talk to women, sit with them.

They take selfies, whatever.

They try to put on this great atmosphere.

They just do this all the
time because that’s his job.

His job is to make these women
actually fall in love with him

so they will come back more, spend
more money, give him more money.

That’s how he makes money.

She does the same thing.

Maybe it’s at a manager level.

She doesn’t do it so directly anymore, but
she teaches the other girls how to do it.

She tries to develop these
relationships so that the

bar makes more money, so
she can make more money.

Like, this is not something
that should be a surprise to her,

but she immediately connected if
she’s taking pictures with these women,

then he must be sleeping with these
women, and she got insanely jealous.

This is another part of
the Yandade character,

attributes that
everyone was playing into,

thinking this was so great that she was
fulfilling this fantasy character so much.

So, in Takahoka’s mind, this meant
that he was having sex with them.

So, she waited until 350 in the
mornings that he would be dead asleep.

She got a knife from the kitchen,
and she stabbed him in stomach.

He woke up and he struggled, and he managed
to get to the elevator before he collapsed.

She, for some reason,
brought him down to the lobby,

so she must have actually pulled
him out of the elevator as well.

There’s a bit in there that’s sort of
unknown, but basically it was discovered.

He was laying on the floor, bleeding out.

She’s sitting on the
floor, smoking a cigarette,

and talking on her cell phone in
sort of pajamas and like slippers.

She, her legs and her
arms were covered in blood.

There’s blood all over the lobby for.

She wasn’t calling the police.

She wasn’t trying to save his life.

She was just sitting
there talking on the phone.

I don’t actually remember if it
was revealed who she was talking to.

A passerby came and saw all
the blood and called the police.

So, that is how this was
discovered in the first place.

The photos in the lobby
are what made her famous.

Now, the most famous picture is her
sitting on the lobby floor on the phone.

She’s wearing sort of a black shirt
and not much else, some slippers.

And so, of course, the fetishization
of this person began immediately there

because she has her legs
out and she’s covered in blood.

And it’s exciting and sexy and dangerous.

And that’s the bit everyone wants to see.

And she’s just ignoring
the police at this point.

So, she’s sitting there
talking on her phone,

ignoring the police
officers who are there.

The shocking bit to me was the
boyfriend is sitting in the background.

He’s just bleeding out.

Like, he’s going to die if someone
doesn’t take some emergency action.

The police don’t seem to be making
any moves to actually make that happen.

I don’t actually know what
the proper procedure is there.

I assume separate the two and immediately
start performing first aid on the man

and arrest the woman since
she seems to not be injured.

We don’t know what happened
at this point if you’re the police.

You don’t know if he attacked
her and she fought back.

You don’t know if she attacked him.

So separate them and start giving
the person a news injured some first aid.

But that’s the picture
that set off the internet.

It set off the story.

It set off this because
she’s an attractive woman.

All these sort of white
night guys coming in.

Crowd funding her defense to
try to get her off this very clearly.

She’s guilty of attempted murder.

Her statement was I intended to die
after watching him die from stabbing.

Basically her statement
was once he died on the floor.

So this is where my
actual question comes in.

Why did she take him to the lobby?

If she was just waiting for
him to bleed out and die.

Once he died, she
was going to kill herself.

There didn’t seem to be any
reason to take him to the lobby.

And it seemed weird that she
started calling someone on the phone.

That is all information that
is lost to history at this point.

Then the article started
coming out and they

started calling her the
two beautiful criminal

because she’s cute. And by Japanese
standards, she hits sort of ticks every box.

She’s cute and sexy.

And that’s sort of this whole
atmosphere of attractiveness.

And then they add on
this other layer this yandere

sort of anime thing
they’ve thrown into it.

Again, the media threw
this into it right away.

They leaned into this
hard, setting off this

whole crazy fetishization
of this person.

So this was published on Tokyo
Reporter and Seemic B is a podcast.

So of course, I’m going to read it to you.

But if you’re on the YouTube
channel, you can read along with it.

What follows is a transcription of
some of the questions by her lawyers in it.

Readers learned the details of the
innocent how it happened, how it ended,

and her later regret
reports news post seven.

This is back from December 9, 2019.

Let’s go back to the time of the incident.

After Runa arrived at around 3 p.m.
on May 23rd,

we put up the curtains
together, talked and had sex.

What did you talk about?

Apparently, he had made a
reservation at a hair salon that night,

and his boss had asked him why he
was meeting with me outside the bar.

Now, this is one of the things
about being a host or hostess.

If you meet outside the bar and you start
dating or forming an actual relationship,

that will actually take
money away from the bar.

So they want you to keep the customers
coming into the bar as often as possible.

So having these relationships outside
can actually be very dangerous for the bar.

Maybe you form a real enough relationship
that you stop working at the bar,

and then he loses two
streams of income because

you’re not there to
attract more people,

but then also, the people aren’t
coming in to give the money.

Why would your boss say something to
you if you met Takoka outside the bar?

Because if I meet him outside the
bar, I would stop coming to his bar.

Well, that’s actually what I just said.

After that, he fell asleep,
so I went to the kitchen,

and my desire to kill him
and die remained the same.

So I grabbed a knife from
the kitchen and went to him.

So again, this is, she saw pictures
on his phone of him doing his job,

sitting in the bar, talking to
other women, taking selfies,

and she immediately
extrapolated that they must

be having sex as well,
so he was cheating on her.

What was that knife?

On the morning of May 23rd, I
bought it at Don Quixote in Okubo.

After work for household purposes,
I had no intention of killing him.

I just bought it for household purposes.

How did you hold the knife?

This is again, that bits that, for
me, isn’t outside are very interesting,

because I don’t know what kind of
questions they ask in a Japanese court.

I don’t know what is
important, what is not important,

when they’re talking about an attempted
murder, because this is all new to me.

I held the knife in both hands and stabbed
him in the stomach as he was sleeping.

What was he wearing?

He was wearing a pair of pants.

Where were you positioned?

I was standing in the middle
of Runa’s torso on his left side.

How did you hold the knife?

So he’s asking it again.

I held it with both hands.

What direction was the blade facing?

I don’t remember.

I stabbed Runa in the stomach.

What angle was the blade at?

He was a right angle to him.

How many times did you stab him once?

So this is trying to make sure
that all the details are accurate.

So there is some, perhaps,
suspicion that maybe she’s just

saying this, maybe she’s
covering up for someone else.

So she has to get all the
details right to actually prove

that she was the one who
actually tried to kill the guy,

even though she’s admitted to it
very directly and very obviously.

After you stabbed him, he tried to get up.

So I got on top of him to
stop him from getting up.

And he tried to let me go by choking me.

So he tried to get her
off of him by choking her.

What kind of conversation
did you have with Runa?

He said, “Okay, I love you.

So let’s stay together forever.

” So I said, “I love you.

So let’s die together.

” He put the knife
under the bed and said,

“I won’t tell the police,
but I’ll call an ambulance.

” So I took his mobile phone.

So he’s now in a strange negotiation phase
where he’s trying to, he’s been stabbed.

He’s trying to get away from
her so he can get to the hospital.

He’s saying, “I won’t
hold this against you.

I won’t call the cops.

” We’ll just say it was an
accident, something like that.

She doesn’t believe him.

She just wants them both to die.

Why did you put the knife there?

When I stabbed him in
the stomach and saw the

pain on his face, I
felt really regretful.

And by that point, I think I had no
longer any intention of killing him.

So this is in the moment when it’s real.

She suddenly thinks this was a bad idea.

I regret it.

I had this must actually happen so much.

What happened after you
took the mobile phone away?

He got up and went to the front door so
I chased after him, telling him not to go.

He hit me, punching and kicking
with his arms, legs, and face.

That’s when my contacts came out.

So I went to get my glasses.

I also took my cigarettes and
cell phone and chased after him.

That is a strange detail.

But again, very realistic
because I bet every time she

leaves the house, she grabs
her cigarettes and cell phone.

That’s just a natural thing.

I always just reach for and grab my keys
to the house before I walk out the door.

And I bet even in an emergency situation,

I would instinctively
just do the same thing.

So I think that’s probably
why this panic, the stress,

she just did what she always does,
grab her cigarettes and cell phone.

The lawyer asked the same question though.

Why the cigarettes?

I don’t know.

But I found myself holding a cigarette.

I found Runa lying at the entrance.

I was so regretful
that I called the police.

Now, that may not be true.

This is her testimony from 2019.

It’s actually said that she
isn’t the one who called

the cops, that it was a
passerby who called the cops.

Now, I, again, I’m getting all
my information from the internet.

It’s all secondhand.

I have no idea what is actually accurate.

Why did you call the police yourself?

When I saw Runa’s blood
and how he looked and pain,

I really regretted it and realized
that I had done something terrible.

I didn’t want him to die and I was so scared
of him dying that I called the police.

You told the police something different.

You said to them, “I heard a woman scream
when I was going down the emergency stairs,

so I knew I couldn’t
die with him.

” I was really panicked
at the time and I said

yes to what the police
and prosecutor said.

But what I really regret
most is having stabbed him.

So she’s saying, in the
moment, she called the police.

She just started saying whatever she
felt she needed to say in the moment.

I think that’s a very
realistic answer, to be honest.

Please tell us about
when you called the police.

They first asked me if it was a crime
or an accident and I answered crime.

It seemed like they
thought it was a prank, so

I told them the same
thing over and over again.

This is an interesting reaction
because I think in other countries,

if you say I just stabbed someone,
it’s never going to be taken as a prank.

But Japan being such a generally saved
country, the police probably are like,

“We want to make sure this is real
crime before we take our time on it.

” What happened?

I told the my name, Runa’s
name, that I had stabbed him,

that I was at the entrance, and
that we needed an ambulance.

I explained what I had done and
made sure everyone asked me.

Why did you stab him?

I liked him and I wanted to be with him.

I’m sorry.

I did something selfish.

When did you start to
think this around June?

I thought so after hearing
about Runa’s situation

from my lawyer and hearing about
my mother and father’s situation.

So Runa was in a coma for five days
and it took him five days to wake up.

He’d been stabbed.

He’d actually pierced his liver
and so he wasn’t able to eat.

He was actually having a lot of trouble.

So there’s a lot of rehabilitation.

At this time, he was probably
still just starting his rehabilitation.

It was very tough recovery.

He did do a full recovery though.

What was Runa’s situation?

The scars were deep,
reaching all the way to his liver

and he had been in a coma
for five days without waking up.

What about your parents?

When they came to
visit, they were very thin.

Their hair was turning gray.

They were crying and
with so many media outlets

at our house, they
were almost neurotic.

So again, this was a massive news story.

Everyone wanted as much
information as possible.

They were trying to make
this as grandiose as they could

because this pretty
woman with this yandere

atmosphere, we want to
create the story of the century

so they were just all over
everybody in the story.

The parents, of course, are
going to be hounded by the media.

Is that both your father or mother?

Both my father and mother.

As time went on, I became
more and more scared

that I had done something
so horrible and I felt so sorry,

so scared and so sorry that I
had nearly taken someone’s life.

I also caused trouble for my parents.

What about Runa?

I wrote a letter of
apology to Runa in June.

I said I was truly sorry that I
would no longer be involved with him

and mentioned compensation and
had it delivered through my lawyer.

And what about while you were in custody?

I was thinking about Runa and my parents,

making sure they were eating
properly, getting enough sleep.

My mother came over at
least three times a week,

but my father was busy with work,
so he came about twice a week.

What did we talk about?

We talked about a lot of things,

like the incidents, the procedures
from moving out of the house and our cat.

What about Runa?

I heard they settled for five million yen.

Five million yen is not very much money.

Like it would be the average salary for a
year in Japan is four to five million yen.

So it’s the upper end of a
very average salary in Japan.

I heard that they had submitted a petition.

What about the five million
yen settlement money?

My mother prepared it for me.

This is interesting because
I’ve actually read the story.

I reviewed some of the details.

After Phoenix had made his recovery, he
actually came out with a statement saying

he didn’t have a grudge against her,
he didn’t hold anything against her.

He wasn’t necessarily saying
he was going to get back

together with her, but he was
saying I’m not holding a grudge.

I’m not angry at her for what she did.

What kind of exchange did
you have with your mother?

She told me I prepared it for your future.

Your desire to return the
money is enough for me.

You don’t have to pay me back.

What did you think?

I want to work and save five
million yen, earn more money,

pay it back, and make my
mom and dad’s lives easier.

How did you spend your
time while out on bail?

I took a training course called
initial training for care workers.

I want to be useful to
someone in the future.

I took it because I wanted
to be like my mother.

My mother is a certified care worker.

She’s a great person and
I want to be just like her.

Is that a qualification?

It’s a qualification equivalent
to a second class helper

and allows you to work
in homes and the like.

How often did you go about three days
a week for about six hours each time?

The lectures were really fun.

I learned a lot of new things
and it was very educational.

I want to take practical
training and study

become a certified
care worker in the future.

Did you get the qualification?

Yes.

I heard that you need practical experience.

So what will you do about finding a job?

I would like to find a job through
Hellowork and start working.

Hellowork is sort of a very
normal job search place.

I don’t know if it’s from the government,

but it’s a search.
It helps you find jobs in Japan.

When you enter society, you will probably
find people who know about the incident.

How do you plan to respond to them?

I haven’t thought about how
to respond in any particular way.

It’s a crime that I committed.

Should I just let it go?

Rather than just
letting go, I think about it

deeply and make efforts
to a tone for my crime.

Can you endure?

I will endure.

There’s a little bit more
listening to your mother’s story.

It really broke my heart seeing
my mother crying so much.

I didn’t know how to
apologize, even though

this crime couldn’t
possibly be the fault of

a parent, so no matter how
much it was painful for me,

I decided to stay with her so
that I could make her life easier.

And what about Runa?

No matter how much I apologize,
I can never apologize enough.

It’s a crime I can’t a tone for
even if I spend my entire life doing it.

I don’t think I’ll be
forgiven even if I apologize.

It may seem strange and weird for me to say
this, but I’m really glad that I’m alive.

I’m truly sorry.

I am doing a very Canadian story now.

Didn’t realize that.

Now that I’m actually listening to myself
speak, I realize just how Canadian I am.

So she got three and a half years in
prison and she just got out recently.

She’s still active on
Instagram, X and YouTube.

What does she do on Instagram and YouTube?

Well, her YouTube, the most recent
one, she has 10,000 subscribers by the way.

The most recent one is her
doing a variety of different cosplays.

So it starts out with
her with not much makeup

on and how to put the
makeup on and then it’s

applying more makeup and then some
wigs and stuff and this is two hours long.

So I don’t know if she’s
going to be making enough

money off this, but
again, the people who are

watching this, it’s a question of are
they interested in her as a cosplayer,

as a beauty influencer
or are they interested in

her because of his dark
criminal background that

makes her attractive in a
different and unique way.

She’s not doing care work. So what she was
saying in the transcript, who just read,

it’s not that she was lying.
She didn’t follow through on what she said.

I think in that thing, she’s trying to
say, “Look, I want to be a better person.

I want to help society.

” That’s not necessarily a
bad thing that she didn’t do it.

I think again, I have a negative
view of influencer, which is

ironic because I make podcasts
and YouTube videos and stuff.

It’s interesting that the guy has
no grudge or he says he doesn’t.

I’m sure he hasn’t met her again since.
So I guess it’s easy to say,

you’re not holding a grudge
if you just never plan on

seeing someone again, just
how I live most of my life.

So for me, the salaciousness of the
murder wasn’t enough to get me interested.

I read about murder all
the time because I read

about the news all the
time and there’s a lot

of real-life crime in the news all
the time. I think it was the immediate

fetishization of her as a character.
Not even as a real person as a character,

but the fact that she
was a hostess played

into it, the fact that
her boyfriend was a host

played into it, the fact
that all these people

on the internet inserted
themselves into that

relationship, so many of
the guys on the internet

saying that if it was me,
this wouldn’t have happened.

I’m wondering now that she’s built her
influencer sphere. She’s on the Instagram,

she’s on YouTube. Are
the people there holding

out that small hope that
they could be the one

that’s actually with her
in the future and that

her yandade love, that
strength of love, that they

actually in a weird way
admire and want because

you want that sort of
level of passion directed

towards you, that they
would return it and then

they would end up having the
perfect relationship with her.

It’s interesting to see where she
will go from here because in Japan,

they have a weird
relationship with fame, so

she’s now gotten famous and she can probably
hold on to that fame for a long time.

There’s a story. I don’t want
to go into the whole thing.

I actually think I may have done this
story on an old Velocipod cast episode,

but there was a guy,
a Japanese guy, and he

was in France, and he
killed an eight a woman,

and because of the rules,
he wasn’t a French citizen,

they were like, “Okay,
we’ll send him back to

Japan,” and they will
punish him, and then

he was sent back to
Japan, he was extradited,

and then when he ended
up in Japan, they’re like,

“Well, he didn’t actually
commit a crime in Japan,”

so the Japanese didn’t
persecute him, so he

ended up basically
just getting away with it,

and then, based on his
reputation as a cannibal,

started doing restaurant
reviews and became

a really famous restaurant
reviewer in Japan, based

purely off a crime that
he’d committed in France,

one of the most heinous
crimes you could actually

ever think of, killing and
eating another human being,

so there’s this weird
disconnect almost with the

fantasy and the reality
in Japan, and you see

this in a lot of different
aspects, but I think

in these situations, it
shows so clearly and so

really that people
don’t have a connection

between what’s really
happening and what they’re

seeing sort of in media,
because they’re living

the dream, they want
the dream to happen,

they think this could
be real, but the reality

is, this is a convicted
attempted murder,

or, God, that’s a terrible sense, convicted
attempted murder, as way easier to say,

all these guys on the
internet living out a

fantasy that isn’t real,
because the character they

gave her in the media
isn’t her real character,

and she may play into it
now because that’s how

she’s going to capitalize
on that fame, but that’s

just as fake as the love
she may have shown people

while she was working
in a hostess bar, while

her boyfriend was
working in a host bar,

while they were getting
money from other people

pretending that they
actually were into them.

It’s a skill, it’s a skill I don’t have,
you can tell by this ending right here.

[MUSIC]

Examines Japanese Folklore

[Music]

It’s Japanese folktales. I came to Japan. Of course
I want to learn how to speak Japanese. I want

to learn how to read. I want to learn how to be
a better person. I want to be able to interact.

When I was learning how to read it first, I wanted
some heated gamma books. I got really interested in

them. I really enjoyed them. This is how I started
learning some Japanese vocabulary that I didn’t know.

I thought folktales would give me a
little insight into the culture. I wish I

hadn’t done that because the insight
into the culture was absolutely terrifying.

Japanese folktales are just off the chain. They are
just insane. The kid’s folktales traditionally are.

If you get the old original versions are always
horrendous stuff. It’s always people getting torn in half.

I would say in the European tradition, the Western tradition that they are
generally trying to teach you something. So, Hansel and Gretel is like, “Oh,

be your parents. Don’t go into the forest. Be careful of strangers.” A
little red riding hood is like be cautious of strangers, that kind of stuff.

There is, despite the horror of
the story itself, a lesson you’re

trying to impart upon children.
Japanese fairy tales or folktales.

They go hard and I spent years trying to
figure out what the actual moral of a lot of

these was. It turns out the moral of most
of these seems to be revenge as in get some.

The first story I read was the crab in the
monkey. I’m going to tell you the bridged

version of this. I started doing research
on these, trying to learn more about these.

It turns out, you know, this is an oral tradition, so
there’s multiple versions of the story. The interesting

one on this is what gets used in the final revenge
plot, kind of changes depending on where you are.

I bet it’s actually just local
stuff gets used so it’s more

familiar to the people who
are actually hearing the story.

I’m going to tell you the story
and then we can do a little

bit of analysis. I got three
stories to tell you today.

If you find a rice ball, don’t eat
that rice ball, that’s not good for you.

The monkey comes along and
sees the crab with the rice ball.

Don’t eat the rice ball.
Give me the rice ball and I’ll

give you this persimency,
persimines are a fruit in Asia.

The crab’s like, that’s a bad deal. I
got this one in the hand right now.

I can eat it and I’ll be satisfied. I
don’t know if crab’s eat rice. Sure.

I’ll go with that crab’s eat rice. I
think everything needs rice. If you have

a rice ball, I don’t use any animal
that would actually refuse to eat it.

Okay. I got a knot tangent. This might be
the hardest part for me. Discipline-wise.

The monkey convinces the crab
says, I’m going to give you the seed.

You can grow the seed
into a persimine tree.

The persimine tree, therefore, will provide
you with persimines for a very long time.

It’s a much better deal. It does take
patience and the crab’s like, you know what?

The crab’s just, you know, inherently patient animals. I will do the
exchange. So gives him the rice ball, gives the monkey the rice ball,

takes the persimine seed, goes off and plants at the monkey’s like,
aha, I got a rice ball, eats it right away, you know, disappears.

X amount of years later, I assume, they dose
kind of just jump, cut, smash, cut to the

next part. The crab plants and grows the tree.
It produces a lot of fruit, but it’s crab.

The crabs don’t have famously long arms and
they’re not particularly good at climbing.

Don’t tangent. I can’t. I’ve seen videos
online of giant crabs climbing up walls.

Okay. That’s not what’s happening here.
This crab cannot climb. God, I’m going

to ruin this. It’s not like I was going
to make it good in the first place.

This crab cannot climb the tree to get the persimines and the monkey is in the tree and he’s
like, aha, he takes a persimine, he starts eating it and the crabs like, hey, dude, those

are my persimines. You can’t have them without my permission. You need to like, at least give
me the persimines. You shouldn’t be eating my persimines. There’s a lot of argument there.

The monkey, being a little bit of
prick, takes an unripe and persimines so

very hard and throws it down and
kills the crab. This is straight up murder.

Now, there’s a couple of verses in this story. One is
very graphic rate like cracks its carapace and then

the thing suffers for a long time and dies and then
others is just throws it down and just kills the crab.

Now, this crab had babies.
Again, they grew this tree for years.

I don’t know how old these babies
are but I don’t know how long crabs live.

Crabs one of those animals that just lives
forever until it dies, which I guess is

every animal. What I mean is there are like
animals that have sort of a finite lifespan.

There are people who think that like lobsters
are immortal, like something has to kill them

but basically they never get sick or anything.
I don’t know if crabs are the same as that.

I know a couple people listen
to this, it’s like double speed.

This might be very
confusing for you. I’m sorry.

The earliest version of this is when
the persimine hits the crab to kill it.

It actually gives birth in
that moment and then dies.

So it was carrying
babies inside or something

but all the versions
the crab has babies.

Then the baby crabs are
like let’s get some help and

they don’t really explain
what the help is for yet.

It’s almost like a question of
is there inherent knowledge that

the babies are going to go get
revenge or is this like a reveal?

It’s actually something I should
ask some Japanese people.

After learning every one of these stories,
when I read these stories initially,

I went to some Japanese co-workers
and I asked them questions about it.

They were always very befuddled
because they couldn’t answer

any of my questions because
they were like too nitpicky I guess.

So they go and they want to get to the
Japanese folktale version of the A team.

We’re like we’re going to
go get the best of the best.

So they get a chestnut, a B, and an Usu.

Now an Usu is usually a tree stump
that’s been hollowed out and what they do

is they put rice in there and they get
a big hammer and they pound the rice.

So you probably if you’ve watched any video
on Japan, seen the guys, the guy hits it

with a giant hammer and then the other guy
mixes it and then he hits it with a hammer.

And there’s a rhythm to it.
So they want to go fast without

actually hitting the guy’s
hands with a giant hammer.

So there is a rhythm kind of
thing you can see if you want.

That’s not important.
You got to know what it is.

It’s really, it looks like a giant heavy
pestle. Heavy is the important word.

And a cow poop. So as a person listening to this
story, I did have issue with the anthropomorphization

because before we were dealing with monkey and
crap, both animals, they could talk to each other.

I’m accepting that. Okay, now it seems like the
author, the creator of this folk tale, is just like,

well, what do I want in this story? I’ll anthropomorphize
those, but not necessarily everything else.

Got to take a little deep break.
See how many spins he does.

Three. Four. Come
on, buddy. Five. Six.

Holy is a lot. Oh, he on the
seventh one. He’s down. Okay. Good.

So I take a little Dave break
there. Everyone enjoys a little Dave.

So my problem was, yeah,
anthropomorphizing cow poop.

So the B makes sense. It’s in the animal
kingdom, just like the crab in the monkey.

I’ll accept that. The
chestnut, that’s pretty tough.

How do we have a single sentient chestnut? The Usoo is
something carved from a tree. It seems like if you’re

going to anthropomorphize trees, when it’s an Usoo,
the tree had to be cut down. It would be dead by now.

But we’re just going magic, but
the poop was a bit of a stretch.

I was like, why do
you have to do a poop?

And I’m like, oh, it’s Japan.
Japan loves putting poop in stories.

Japan is, I believe, the culture that
popularized the ice cream swirl poop.

And so now if you draw that, people think
it’s poop and not necessarily ice cream.

So this group gets
together. You have the crabs,

the chestnut, the B,
the Usoo, and the poop.

And they’ve teamed up and
they’re going to get that monkey.

They go to the monkey’s house.
The chestnut gets in the fire.

The B hangs out around the
water pail. The cow poop hides in the

dirt floor outside the building
and the Usoo gets on the roof.

Now I explanation to how anything’s
happened. The Usoo, since it’s

sentient somehow, could get on
the roof, we’re just accepting it.

You can see what they’ve set up
is a root Goldberg machine of death.

They’re creating a elaborate
way to torture and kill the monkey.

Which, again, this is dark.
Like when you actually

think about what’s happening,
this is very, very dark.

So the monkey comes
home and he goes to the fire

to warm himself after a
hard day of monkeying.

And then the chestnut pops and
the pop, you know, that little bit

of fire jumps out and hits him
in the arm and it burns his arm.

So he runs outside and he
puts his arm in the water bucket,

which is not sentient, which
actually I just thought of just now.

He puts his arm in the water bucket and
then the B stings him. And then he runs and

he slips in the dirt on the cow poop,
which essentially would kill the cow poop.

I don’t know. I don’t know. They
could have just had the crabs

bring the cow poop over. It didn’t
have to be sentient, but it was.

It’s a character in the story.
He slips on the cow poop and he

falls down and then the Usoo
falls down on him and kills him.

So this is like home
alone. This is like full on

construction of A to B to C
to D to death. Now home alone.

I don’t believe they
killed anybody, but that’s

because it was a kids
movie. This is a kid’s story.

The imagine the large trunk
of a tree falling and crushing

if not the whole monkey, at
least enough of him to kill him.

I don’t really like how
complicated the plan is.

I don’t think you should
do overly complicated plans.

If you’re going to do murder
and stuff, you’re going to do that.

It has to be simple and direct so
you know it’s going to be effective.

This relies on lock if you
hadn’t fallen in the right place.

If the burn hadn’t been strong
enough, the plan fell apart right there.

So the plan was overly complicated.

I think this is supposed to
be the entertaining aspect of

the story for the kids, the
complicated nature of the plan.

But then if you’re going to do that, make it way longer.
Maybe that’s some of the other stories that I didn’t

read is that it is way longer and that is actually the
entertainment is how stupidly complicated the plan is.

But every element of the
plan furthers torture the monkey

before his death. That’s
something to keep in mind.

So I, when I read this story
the first time, went to my

Japanese coworkers and I said
what is the moral of this story?

And most of them could not really
explain it because it’s not forgiveness.

It is clearly and exclusively, you killed my
parents, I’m going to kill you and I’m not just

going to kill you, I’m going to make it painful
and maybe even last as long as possible.

Now, someone else in Japanese society kind
of came to a similar realization as me.

There was a guy named Ryunosuke Akutakawa.

He rewrote the end of
the story so that the crab

children were all arrested
and given the death penalty.

So this guy thought ah,
there is a moral lacking in this

story where the baby crabs
get revenge for their parents.

They need to be punished by the law
because they’ve committed a murder.

So I’m going to give them all the
death penalty so no one survives.

I mean, they actually make
it sound in that way that the

poop and the Usu and the bee
are irrelevant in the chestnut.

Maybe the chestnut, because it’s in
the fire, like it would be dead, right?

The bee, one of bee’s things, you hit dies.

The Usu is the only thing that
technically could have survived

this whole process because
the poop, you slip in the poop.

Yeah, anthropomorphizing those
was a bad idea because you have to

hurt them or kill them to get
them to participate in this plan.

And somehow they agreed to it.

No Japanese person I met could ever
explain to me the actual moral of that.

It was like don’t do bad things.
Like the monkey did a bad thing.

And that’s why revenge
wasn’t acted upon him

so the monkey shouldn’t
have done bad things.

So don’t be bad.

But I was like, is not a
complicated murder also a bad thing?

And that’s where they ran into
problems because it is hard to

deny that the murder torture
saw a movie at the end of this story.

This story is an acceptable way to behave.

I do like that the guy
who rewrote the end

actually also gave
everyone the death penalty.

Like that’s not actually better.
There’s no reconciliation.

There’s no anyone becoming a
better person out of this story.

It’s just death and murder.

Which brings us to our second story,
which is the rabbit and the Tanuki.

The Tanuki is a raccoon
style animal in Japan.

You probably know that.
I don’t want to make any

assumptions about what
people do and don’t know.

But Tanuki’s are famous
in Japan as shapeshifters.

There’s the War of the Tanuki, which
is like humans are encroaching on.

It’s like a jibbly movie or something.

Humans are encroaching on their land.

There’s one scene where
they use their testicle sacks

as they stretch them out
and use them as parachutes.

Other cultures are wonderful
and exciting to learn about.

I did enjoy that. It was very funny. It was
very funny to me because it was so weird.

This is apparently just
part of the Tanuki mythology.

Anyways, let’s get into it.

There was a Tanuki
stealing food from a farmer.

Pretty normal thing for an animal to do.

The farmer caught him and
tied him to a tree, the Tanuki.

He says, “I’m going to come
back later and I’m going to kill you.

” The Tanuki starts to
cry, so we all feel bad.

The farmer’s wife comes
back and she feels bad.

And the Tanuki apologizes
and says, “I won’t do it again.

I’m not going to
steal anymore foods.

” So the old lady in her
kindness unties the Tanuki.

So what does the Tanuki do?

If you haven’t already gotten sort of
the theme of what’s been going on so far,

the Tanuki then murders the
old lady and shapeshifts into her.

So when people come
back, they’re going to see

the old lady, but it’s
actually the Tanuki.

The Tanuki takes the
old lady and brings her

into the house so no
one can see the body.

He then cuts her up and prepares her in
a meal for the farmer when he comes back.

I’m just going to let
that one sit for a bit.

Everyone makes a big deal
about the South Park episode

where he feeds the kid his
own parents or something.

This way, way back.

Hundreds of years ago, the Japanese were
like, “Yep, this is what’s going to happen.

We’re going to have a man
do unknown cannibalism

as part of our folk tale
to teach kids morals.

” Again, it’s just a
revenge story, bud.

So the farmer comes back
and he sits down and eats

dinner and they don’t say
whether he enjoys it or not,

but I’m going to go ahead
and assume he thinks this

is a great dinner because
that just makes it worse.

Then the Tanuki sort of does
the big reveal and says, “Haha,

you’ve just eaten your own wife
and then books it out of there.

” Man, yeah, I don’t know
where to go from there.

There was forced
cannibalism as part of this

story if you really
stop down thinking it.

The farmer is understandably upset.

His friend, the rabbit comes by and
goes, “Hey buddy, what happened?

” He goes, “Well,
I just ate my wife.

” The rabbit vows revenge
on the farmer’s behalf.

There’s a few versions of this story,
but I’ll share the common element.

So I’m only going to use
the common elements

of this story when I
am telling it to you now.

Like the previous story, the
different versions, really all

they do is add more elements
of torture to lengthen the story.

So I’m going to give you the base version and
understand that every other version you could

hear has more aspects or elements of torture
in it before the actual death at the end.

The rabbit befriends the Tanuki.

Then, while they’re one
day while they’re out in the

forest, the rabbit drops a
beehive on the Tanuki’s head.

And then the Tanuki, of course,
gets stings all over his head.

So the rabbit treats the stings
with pepper to make it hurt more.

The Tanuki is carrying kindling,
so this must be on another day.

He’s carrying kindling on the
way back, and they’re walking by.

This story is actually called kachi
kachi yama, which is kachi kachi mountain.

And he’s carrying kindling, and he’s
walking along, and the rabbit’s behind

me and lights the kindling on fire,
setting the Tanuki on fire from behind.

And as soon as he’s like,
“Hey, do you hear that sound?

” Sounds like kachi kachi
kachi kachi is the sound of fire.

And then the rabbit looks
and goes, “Yes, that is

because we are walking
close to kachi kachi yama.

Kachi kachi yama is kachi
kachi kachi mountain, I guess.

” And that’s why you —
famously, you can hear the kachi

kachi sound of fire when
you are close to this mountain.

Of course, it burns his back. It burns
the Tanuki’s back, but it doesn’t kill him.

But that’s when the Tanuki realizes
the rabbit isn’t really his friend.

So then, he challenges
the rabbit to a contest.

I don’t really get this part.

He says, “Let’s race across the lake,
so we’re going to build our own boats.

We’re going to
race across the lake.

” The rabbit carves a boat
out of a tree trunk, so would.

The Tanuki makes his boat out of mud.

I think you can see a
flaw in the Tanuki’s plan.

As they start going across the lake,
the Tanuki’s boat starts to dissolve.

He starts to drown, and the rabbit
hits him on the head with an ore.

This is the weird part of this revenge,
because the revenge part of this —

if you had just left the Tanuki to his
own devices, he would have killed himself.

Like, he wouldn’t — you wouldn’t
actually have to commit murder.

Like, some of the other attempts could
have been considered murder attempts.

This one, he challenged you to a race.

He built an inferior boat.

That inferior boat started to sink.

He went down with it.

He couldn’t swim very well.

You could just let him drown, and
then claim a certain amount of innocence.

But, the rabbit takes it
always that step further.

Like, this is it, the
protagonist, or the hero.

These stories always
takes it that step further

to make sure that they
actually kill the thing.

So the killing blow is the — or
hitting the Tanuki in the head.

Then the rabbit goes back
to the farmer and tells the

tale of his revenge, and I
guess everyone satisfied.

And this is not an eye for an eye.

So, like, you killed my
wife, I’m going to kill you.

That would be an eye for an eye, I think.

This is always —
there’s another element of

I’m going to torture
you before I murder you.

So, it’s an eye for an eye, plus more.

It’s almost like your enemies must suffer.

And then I asked some
Japanese people about this story,

and their version of the
moral was don’t do bad things.

And then when you come
back to them and say,

“Well, is not torturing
someone also a bad thing.

” They’re like, “But that’s
as a result of your actions.

” So, if you hadn’t
committed those actions, you

wouldn’t have been
tortured in the second place.

So, that’s one of the weird
issues of these stories.

We have one more story.

Now, this one is not
about torture and murder.

Those two shared a theme.

And I read them very
close to each other, and

when I asked my Japanese
friends about them,

I never got a satisfactory
moral to this story.

Essentially, they would just
say, “Don’t do bad things.

” But I’m like, “But the
result of you doing a bad

thing was a very complicated,
awful, evil revenge.

” The last story I’m going to do,
though, is called the Boy and the Turtle.

And it’s just — it’s like someone did some
— found some LSD way, way back in the day.

So, there’s a little boy on the beach.

And he’s walking around
and he sees some other boys.

And they’re bullying a turtle.

I don’t know what that means.

I think I guess that just means they’re
playing with a turtle in an unkind way.

Maybe hitting it or
turning it out on the back.

Doing bad things to a turtle.

And I think at that point,
everyone is on the turtle’s sides.

Like, “Don’t do
bad things to turtles.

” Turtles are cool.

This is why the straw
industry suffered so

much when the straw
went up that turtle’s nose,

because when you heard a
turtle, the world unites against you.

So, you know, I don’t use straws.

I legit don’t use straws anymore.

I will only use paper straws.

And it’s because of that turtle.

Because turtles don’t hurt anybody.

Don’t hurt turtles.

Okay.

So, he chases the boys off.

He says, “Don’t
bully the turtle.

” I don’t know if he’s
a scary person, but

anyway, he gets the
kids to leave them alone.

And then she goes, “Thank you.

Come with me under
the sea to a magical world.

” That’s a great invitation.

It’s almost like Disney should make a
song that sounds very similar to that.

So, they go.

So, the boy in the turtle
go together under the sea

and they go down to this
like undersea castle world.

Somehow the boy can breathe,
not asking any questions.

It’s magic.

This is magic.

The undersea kingdom is magic.

So, I’m perfectly skeptical
of what’s going on here.

The boy attends a
three-day party and he eats

food and he does like
what Japanese people do.

They talk to fish.

He eats.

The thing is, if his Japanese
kid was probably eating fish

and talking to fish, that’s
got to be very uncomfortable.

It’s not exactly the
cannibalism from the previous

story, but there is like
an uncomfortable element

if you’re eating like a similar species
while having a conversation with someone.

But he’s having a good time.

He’s having a party or maybe
they’re just eating a lot of seaweed.

It’s been three days.

It’s time to go.

You can only party for so long.

So, the queen says come here.

I want to thank you for
helping our turtle friend.

Here’s a box.

Don’t open the fucking box.

Already that’s a bit weird.

It’s weird as a present.

Like, don’t open the box.

Here’s a box.

Don’t open the box.

That’s it.

Now, get out.

There’s no explanation as to
why you should open the box.

That is to me the biggest
problem with the story so far.

So the weird present is given to
the boy without any explanation.

It’s just the only thing
that said is here’s a box.

Don’t open the box.

I’m assuming it’s a very nice box.

This is a gift from the queen.

He goes back to the beach
and he’s like, I think it’s different.

This is feel different.

The beach looks different.

Maybe some of the buildings in
the background kind of changed.

That’s weird.

And he figures out
that time in the undersea

kingdom and time in
the world he comes from.

Past differently.

It’s almost like
interstellar black hole kind

of like time, fractioning
gravity situation.

I’m not going to explain it.

We’ll just, again, it’s magic.

But he understands that now
three days under the water in

the underwater party kingdom
equals 300 years in the world.

Which means everyone he
knows, his family, his friends,

everyone he’s ever, you
know, everyone’s ever existed.

They’re all dead now.

Like 200 years ago at least.

They’re dead.

And so he has no home.

He has no life.

He has no sort of world to support him.

Because again, this is not
an adult who made this choice.

This is a child.

And that’s another element that
I think gets forgotten very quickly.

This is a child whose entire support system
in the world is now gone 200 years ago.

He sits down on the
beach and starts to cry.

And then he decides to
do the only logical thing.

Maybe there’s something
in the box that can help me

in this dire situation
that I have been put into.

So he opens the box.

And when he opens the box, he
immediately ages 300 years and dies.

What is going on?

So the box was somehow
holding the difference

in time between the
real world and the boy.

So once the box was open,
that whatever magic was released.

And so his aging, it must have been
incredibly painful for a few seconds.

Like he aged 300 years,
and they don’t give a

time frame, but I’m
going to say very quickly.

But that aging process
must have been incredibly

painful and then just
in a sudden death.

The only thing I can
come up with is you have

a short-term reward,
but at a massive cost.

But the moral of the story actually
seems to be don’t help people.

Because if he hadn’t helped the turtle and
left the boy to just bully the turtle more,

he wouldn’t have gone
under seas, he wouldn’t

have spent those three
days ergo 300 years.

Which means his family
wouldn’t have died and

he would have been
able to live a normal life.

He would have, he lost
his life for helping this turtle.

And I cannot for the life of
me figure out any aspect of this,

of having any sort of moral
that makes any sort of sense.

And then the other question
that I have more than anything

else is why didn’t the queen
give him any sort of explanation?

If she had said, “Hey, look,
time passes differently here.

” So if you go back home and
you open this box, you’re going to

age in the difference the 300
years and you’re going to die.

So don’t open the box.

Then he would know
what was going to happen.

She could have explained that to him.

But then he would have had the question
of, “Well, why did you keep me here for

so long knowing that everything in my
world was going to change and disappear?

And all my family was going to
die, and I’m not going to have a life.”

And then it would have made more sense for
him to just stay in the underwater kingdom.

Like there’s no, all the questions lead
to you helped a turtle and lost everything.

The queen maliciously?

Because I don’t think
there was any ignorance.

She knew, she knew to
say, “Don’t open that box.

” So she knew what was going
to happen if you opened that box.

She didn’t give him any
way to go back to the

real world and actually
have some sort of life.

She just dumped him
and left him on his own.

So is that punishment for
coming to the undersea kingdom?

Was that punishment for helping the turtle?

Was this whole thing
some kind of weird strategy?

But that seems like mental torture
for the kid as he sits there and realizes.

300 years ago, everything
I know is no longer existed.

I don’t have anything
in this world anymore.

I have no life.

My world has ended.

I went and asked some
Japanese people what this means.

Like what is this story about?

And they said, “Well,
it teaches you nothing.

It’s just a fanciful story.

” And it’s like it’s a
fanciful story with one

of the most horrendous
endings to his story.

For someone who has tried to
be a good person, the whole time.

Doing good things
might have short-term

benefits but lead to
the loss in the long-term.

I spent months and months and months trying
to figure out some kind of lesson or story

or moral or point to this
boy in the turtle story.

And I’ve never been able to do it.

If you have an idea, please
post it in the comments.

Please send me a message.

ChunkmyVHS.gmail.com or something.

Because I got nothing.

I’ve asked Japanese
people, “They got nothing.

” They’re just like, “Oh,
it’s just like a fun, weird story.

” I’m like, “No, it’s not.

It’s horrible.

” And it makes me question everything
I understand about Japanese culture.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Japanese Kid Show Horror

[Music].

This is a sort of redo of the original
podcast. I talked about some Japanese kids

shows that you might not be familiar
with and it is a part of Japanese culture

and therefore elements of it are weird
as shit. I should have checked how many

seconds it was before I said shit
because YouTube will. I don’t monetize

anyways whatever you’re going to worry
about it. There are two very common little

little kids shows in Japan. A couple
weeks ago on Engineers Japan I was talking

about coming writer. It’s a very common
show but it’s for like you know it’d be

six, seven, eight years old to really
get into it. There’s a lot of anime and

stuff. I actually find the kids get into
anime that’s popular even though it’s

I would say to adult I don’t mean
like adult sexy adult. I mean like cutting

off heads and stuff. Demon Slayer. My
daughter was for a really long time going

like I don’t want to watch scary movies.
The movies in TV shows you watch the

very violent, very scary. Then Demon
Slayer was popular and she watched Demon

Slayer. It had way more violence in it
than a lot of the stuff that I was I was

trying to watch with her. You can’t you
can’t argue with what’s popular. I mean

that’s actually what it comes down to.
What’s popular is what the kids want to

watch regardless of whether it’s
appropriate or not. The first show is

“emba man.” “emba
man” “empa is a kind of

bread” and “man” is
“man” so “emba man” is like

bread dude. Bread guy. Bread man. It is one
of the biggest shows in Japanese history.

Started in 1973 so it’s been going for like
50-152 years up until 2013. That was the

comic when the author of the comic died.
So an entire career based off a

single character which is pretty impressive
because it’s been that successful.

Around 1998 started a TV
show. The TV show is still

ongoing now. It is a
it’s a kids show. It’s like…

“Doraimon” I don’t
enjoy “Doraimon”

actually was one of
the first things I tried

to read when I was learning Japanese
was “Doraimon” because I found kids can be

pretty simple. Problem is it was really
boring because these stories are so

formulaic and this is a problem with
kids shows. They are formulaic if you’re

going to watch them
as not a child. Because I

guess it’s good for kids
they get the same pattern

so they kind of understand what’s going on.
Like even if they don’t 100% understand

what’s going on. “Doraimon” the kid
wants something. “Doraimon” says “I’ll give

you this thing” but
you gotta be careful with

it. The kid abuses it,
messes up his whole

life and then they fix
it together. They learn

a lesson until the
next week. So the irony

to me is in “Doraimon” the lessons never
stick. So what’s the point of learning a

lesson every single
week or every single

episode or every single
comic if none of the

lessons stick. The
lesson is almost always

don’t abuse this thing
you have. Don’t abuse

the power. Don’t abuse
whatever. The kid does

and then he goes “Wow
I won’t do that again”

and then like the next episode he does the
exact same. “Umpomons” is not so different.

My kids watched it. I
always had a bet. So this

is sincere. I always
had a bad feeling about

“Umpomons” there was
something about it that I found

insidious. We did have an
event in my house where

we got a CD. “Umpon
Min is totally different”

“Umpomons is not totally
different” he’s piece of shit.

“It’s just good versus
evil. Bring it, it yet.” Well

let me get into it then
because I think you might

just be wrong. I think
it might just be evil

versus evil but we’ll need
one get into that. Okay.

We had an incident in my
house. We had an incident

in my house where we
got an episode of Barney,

the big purple dinosaur
thing and I thought “Ah

I’ve seen clips of it on
the Internet. People are

singing the stupid love.
I love you. You love me

song.” So I thought “Okay
that’s gonna be pretty

innocent” and then mid
show they started singing

the song. It was a song
about how America is the

greatest country in the
world and I turned it off

and I said “We’re not
watching this anymore and I

threw out that tape.” The
kids didn’t understand the

poem but I was like “This
American centric idea was

not going to be
introduced to my children as

America being the greatest
country in the world.”

It was a problem for
I think international

distribution of a TV
show. It’s very hard to say

we’re going to be very
patriotic in our show and

then sell that to other
countries where you’re

basically saying “Yeah
the country you live in,

kind of shit, country
you live in?” Number two,

it best because America is the greatest
show, the greatest country in the world.

I was sitting there going
like “Okay I don’t want

to introduce that. I don’t
want my kids thinking

America is the greatest
country in the world that

has its issues.” Japan
has its issues but if I was

gonna choose, I would
choose Japan every time to

be honest, I was thinking
about these shows as

I was watching with my
kids in a different way. I’m

bum-bum so let’s get to
the concepts and the base.

It has been one of the
highest ranked hero shows for

the entirety of its run
for under 12-year-olds in

Japan. It’s a very
popular show. Pretty much

every Japanese person
you meet will know the show,

they’ll know about the
characters and whatnot.

Um-bum-bum is the main
character. There are a lot of

the heroes, our food-based
head characters. It’s

not like we have a word
for anthropomorphic animals

which is a lot of the
other characters. I guess

it’s anthropomorphic food
but then I would think of.

a bun, forming legs and the
bun is the body and the head

whereas “Empelman” has what
in this show is a human body

with a bread head on
it which is already very

disturbing if you think
about it. Still, kids show so

we’re gonna forgive
that element of the

Frankenstein element of
it. There are fruit people,

so there’s food
people, so there’s like

“Shokapamman” which
is like white bread head,

There’s “Ampelman” which
is just you know bread head.

I think it’s the red bean
paste in it. There’s a

couple more. I don’t
know. I haven’t watched the

show in a long time.
Then there’s the bad guy,

technically the bad
guy, “Bikingman” which

translates to “Bacteria
Man” is gold is to cover the

world in bacteria
which in a weird way is

actually done because
if you think about it,

everyone’s covered in
bacteria, everything’s covered

in bacteria, “Bikingman”
has actually already won the

war. His manifesto of “I Will Cover the
World in Bacteria” already successful. Mr.

Warren has put in the chat
“Yaki-Soba-Pon-Man” so “Pon

is Bread” so it’s “Yaki-Soba”
which is like a noodle

that put the noodles in
the bread. I have to make

sure that people know
what we’re talking about.

Then they take that
contraption and they

make a head out of it
and put it on him. Now,

I didn’t watch all a lot
of episodes. I watched

a bunch. “Bon-Man”
seems to have the only

head that’s replaceable.
This is a big important

thing. If “Bon-Man” meets
you and I’m hungry. I’m

just in the forest and
I’m lost and I’m hungry,

“Bon-Man” can bend
down and I can eat his head

already again, very
disturbing, but kids show and

I think it’s weird and
funny and they like it,

so I’m not going to
complain about that aspect of

it. I think their goal is
to say like you should

share with other people.
Pretty nice sentiment. I don’t

think you should share
your body with other people.

That’s not the message
I would be going for. Then

he gets weaker though,
so if you eat some of his

head, he has less
physical power. If the bread

that is his head gets
dirty, he has less physical

power. That’s very
important. So there is the old

man who bakes the bread
heads, so I don’t know

if there’s some kind of
voodoo power being inserted

into the bread, how
he does this, to create a

non-sensient head that
connects to the body. Usually

what happens is “Bon-Man’s
bread head is dirty.”.

He gets weak and then the
old dude in Mr. Wormhans

is trying to make
sure I say this, “Jammu

Ozzisa.” He throws
ahead, displacing the original

head, connecting
instantaneously, making a brand

new ompamans. The brain
is in the boat question. If

I replace every part of a
boat, at what point am I?

Do I have a new boat?
If I do it plank by plank,

what point does my boat
become new? If I replace

a head, is he the same
thing? Does he have the same

values? Where is his
heart and memories and his

animal? Where is that
stored? Because it actually

seems to be weak, we
think of it being in your head.

But if you dispose of the
head, your boat’s feelings,

experiences would go
with it, so it’s a fresh

person. I don’t know.
They don’t ever explain it.

Again, kids show they’re
not getting into this

scientific aspect. Or to me, this would
be clearly mystical aspect of the show.

“Jammu Ozzisa” is
doing some wild wild stuff

out there. One of
the main plot lines of

‘ampaman’ is that he is
bringing food to people

who need food. The
counter to that is that

biking man wants
food. Usually, biking man

creates a large overly
complicated machine, like a

Mac or something. He will
use that to fight ‘ampaman’

for the food. And then
‘ampaman’ will defeat.

He usually beats up
biking man and he’ll find

one he doesn’t ‘ampunch’
and he punches him and

biking man flies away in
the sun. It’s a consistent

joke on the show. The
distribution of these

foods has no oversight.
But that is always one of

the… There’s no government
oversight, there’s no

authority figure. This
world is completely devoid of

any authoritarian oversight
over ‘ampaman’. He is a

free entity and he is
unmatched in his abilities.

So he decides exclusively
on his own on what is good

and what is evil. So you
have… ‘ampaman’ decides

this group needs and
wants food. I will give them

food. Biking man, who
I do not like, he wants

and needs foods, I will
not give him food. Biking

man, who is hungry, tries
to take the food for himself

because he is not being
given any, like everyone

else in the world. And
then he is beaten for his

efforts. So that to me
does not sound like a hero.

That does not sound to
me like someone I should

aspire towards. That
does not sound to me

like the archetype of a good person. That
sounds to me like a dictator. ‘ampaman’.

and make any blanket
decision for any reason and no

one can stand in his way.
So that to me is already…

This is sort of a dictatorial
element to the world

they live in. So these
people who do get food

and do not get food.
That’s under ‘ampaman’s

rule’. It’s his decision
exclusively and no one can

fight back. And if you do
fight back, you get beaten

down for your efforts.
You get punched into the

sun on a weekly basis.
Why? Because you don’t

have food. You want
food. You need to get food.

There’s been no
conversation, no diplomacy, no

aspect of trying to
create some sort of peace

between ‘biking man’ and
‘ampaman’ because ‘ampaman’

will not listen to him.
They’ve never been able to

have that discussion.
That to me is one of the

bigger concerns. That is a
comedic version of looking

at the show. There is the
very real problem in that

I have two children. My
son and my daughter were

watching ‘ampaman’.
And as I said, at the end

of every episode basically,
‘ampaman’ looks at

‘biking man’ goes, ‘arm
punch’ and hits him and he goes

into the sun. ‘son’ then
looked at his sister when.

‘arm punch’ and then decked
her in the face as hard as he could.

That was the moment
when I realized that in

real life, ‘ampaman’ is
setting a bad example. I

will make jokes about the
violence in shows. That’s

a bad example. This
isn’t what you should do.

Ha ha ha. The reality
is, this is exactly what

it taught my son. When
he sees a sister is long

he says, ‘ampan’ she can punch her in
the face and it’s perfectly acceptable.

Which to me is the core
issue and why in my house

‘ampaman’ is not a very
popular character anymore

because I wouldn’t let
the kids watch them. My

wife growing up, Japanese,
didn’t see the issue.

You know about the
Christian allegory of ‘ampan’

man? Mr. Warmhands has
just put you know about the

Christian allegory of
‘ampaman’ and ‘no I don’t’.

Is this the resurrection?
So he’s changing his

head is his resurrection.
Is that what we’re

going to go for?
Mr. Warmhands has sent us

the connection between
Christians and ‘ampaman’.

So I’m going to go
through their statements

and we can do a quick analysis of those.
There is what is it, uh,

the lion in the witch in the wardrobe
apparently is a whole Jesus allegory.

Not knowing a whole
lot about Jesus if I’m

being really honest.
Some of my friends actually

find a laughable how
little I know about religion.

Um, a lot of this stuff
doesn’t make it like I don’t

see it. One of the
interesting aspects of being

raising my kids in Japan
as a sort of failed Christian

that in my daughter I
think she was about eight

or nine. We passed by
a church when we were

talking about the church
and she’s like, “What is

it?” And I go, “Do you
know Jesus?” And she’s like,

“No.” So I would say
as far as characters go,

Jesus might be one of the
most famous characters my

daughter didn’t know
him. Right? I was weirdly

proud about him. But
anyways, this is from Osaka

Church. So a church in
Osaka has created a link

between ‘ampaman’ and
‘Jesus’. This actually is

going to be a theme that’s
going to return probably

next month where we
talk about Jesus in Japan.

It’s in Japanese and
English, which is awesome.

Well, the first question
is, what is the connection

between ‘ampaman’ and
‘Jesus’? What they want to

do is take a popular its
character and connect

to Jesus and maybe draw
in those children. I can

see that’s actually kind
of an ugly tactic to me.

But you know, I get
it. They are both living

bread. Yes, I know.
When you go to church,

I believe it’s Catholic
church. You drink the

wine that is his blood
and then you eat the

wafer that is his bread.
The bread is his body.

So you can actually
eat the body of Christ,

the body in blood of Christ. You can
actually eat the body of ‘ampaman’. Mr.

My name is Collek,
correcting me. I think

when I start making
statements about religion,

the corrections will
be so vast that they will

be almost unnecessary.
So let’s just agree to

the fact that I’m only
going to know the big

bits and the big bits
that I learned from TV and

movies because I
certainly didn’t learn it in

church. Takashi Yayasai,
the author of ‘ampaman’,

a popular Japanese
anime, is a Christian. An

‘ampaman’ is the allegory
of Jesus. When I found

out about that, I was
so excited to find the

gospel in the story of
‘ampaman’. This feels like

they’re working really
hard to make this work.

But Mary conceived Jesus
by the power of the Holy

Spirit. On the day of
his birth, it is said that

a big, right star appeared.
Oh, I do remember this

isn’t the opening. A big
star goes down into the

chimney where Gem
Ojisan is baking the bread.

Oh my god, that’s actually
pretty good. Jesus always

helped the poor weaken
sick people unless it was

someone he didn’t like.
Oh wait, that’s ‘ampaman’.

Jesus always helped the
poor weaken sick people.

So he’s ‘ampaman’ always comes to the
rescue of those who cry out for help. If

biking man were to cry
out for help or to ask

for food, he would be
refused and then beaten

terribly. Those were
those were were healed.

Those are those just
type of those were healed.

And saved by Jesus
now found new life in him.

So basically, yeah,
you eat part of his head.

You get healthier. I
mean, it’s just food.

I don’t know. It’s,
again, it’s a bit tough.

Those who are given
bread from ‘ampaman’ regain

strength and became
fully energized. So I guess

they’re kind of relating
that to like Jesus

touched the leper and
healed him and he had more

energy. These kids in the food, in the show
that he gives food to tend to just be lost.

They’re not really in
that. There’s an image

that didn’t load and the
alt title for the images

eat my face. I think
maybe they downloaded the

images from other sources
and people who are saying

like weird things. Jesus gave his
life for our sins and gave us new life.

‘ampaman rescues
others by sharing a piece of

his own sweet bread
face with those in need.

Often ‘ampaman’ gets
beaten up in battles with

biking man, the antagonist,
or is exhausted by

sharing a part. We kind of went over that.
You eat part of his head against weaker.

Jesus resurrects after his
death, he wins over death

and give hope to people
and change their lives.

In this picture, for the
people listening to the

podcast, ‘ampaman’ is
actually removing his own

head and then accepting
a new head from

Jamojisan, who in this
analogy would be God, like

soon. He regains his
health and strength when

Uncle John Bakes had
the new head placed under.

the official. He defeats
his enemy. I think they’re

making biking man out
to be Satan. The problem

being that biking man
really just wants to live

in peace. He wants to
be left alone. He wants

to eat some food. The
food that everyone else is

getting the partake of
so freely. Why is he being

excluded? He is meant to be Satan. I
don’t think that’s a fair, fair comparison.

When I was a child, as I
was watching ‘ampaman’,

I thought he was different
from other heroes and

there were several things
I couldn’t understand. Why

does ‘ampaman’ share
part of his face made out of

bread when he knows
that he will become weak by

doing that? He does it
because it’s an obligation.

It’s sort of the desire to
maintain power because

if his subjects look up
to him and see him is the

sole source of power
and health, then they

will be forever subjected
to him. That’s why.

Why does he just release
biking man even though he

knows he’ll come back?
That is actually not what

happens. That is my complaint.
He doesn’t just release

him. He beats him and
then punches him into the

sun. That isn’t just release
him. I guess maybe in

a certain Christian view,
that’s how you release

people, but I don’t think
that’s the right way to do

it. But because now I know
Jesus, I can understand

‘ampaman’. True hero is
the one who can give himself

to others. No, not always.
Oh wait, there is an image,

an image from the old cartoon of ‘ampaman’
giving part of his head to biking man.

That might be the one that
underpant, underminds my theory.

From ‘On Panman’
Wiki, Bay Kinman’s design

was heavily based on
Vialzabo of the Christian

religion. The Dix-Yo-Nearing-Fernal
describes Vialzabo

as a demonic fly who is
also known as the Lord of

the Flies, which was an
inspiration for bacon mince

fly like appearance.
He’s also a personification

of the black bread mold,
Rizopistelonifer, which

was found on bread surfaces
and causes damage to

bread, which would make bacon men an enemy
to ‘On Panman’, who’s head is a bread.

It’s obvious that ‘On
Panman’ does not exist, but

Jesus is still living
today. I have some issues

with that statement
because why is it so obvious

that Jesus exists in
‘On Panman’ isn’t? I think

there is actually enough
proof for both. And to be

honest, I’ve seen more
stories about ‘On Panman’

than I have about
Jesus.’ He gave not the

part of his body, but
he gave his life to us

the living bread that will
last forever. ‘On the cross

Jesus says, ‘Eat my
bread of life, believe in me,

receive eternal life,
and…’ I don’t think that’s

what ‘Bike’ ‘On Panman’
says when he does it, though.

Becoming a Christian,
having a relationship

with God, he’s dropped
to ‘On Panman’ parts now,

just talking about how
you can become a Christian.

That’s not what
I’m looking for in life.

The author clearly set out heavily
inspired by the stories of the Bible.

I mean, the Bible doesn’t
have Jesus punching

Satan to death and then
throwing him into the sun.

So I actually would disagree with that.
To me, the core element is that final scene

where he does the ‘On
Punch.’ I mean, there’s the

turn the other cheek
bit, but then you keep just

dismissing the aspect
of ‘On Punch.’ ‘On Kick.’

He is a violent and
inherently violent character

who sees violence as the solution
to every problem that is brought up.

Obviously, creative liberties were
taken with the concept of Jesus,

where it’s now Jesus
on the cross and he does

that stupid kung fu
thing and he pulls it out,

and he’s got the pieces of wood still using
these sorts of nailing people with those.

That’s the creative Liberty we’re talking
about because that is what happened.

And you aren’t obnoxious, Ben.

I’m an obvious pettent.

Well, I think you’ve missed the
point of this whole episode then.

Because if I didn’t do
the pettentry, then we

wouldn’t have the
entertaining aspect of the show.

That’s when you’ll get Jesus’
eating Satan into the sun.

I want to see. I want to
see get when Jesus beats

him in and down and then
punches him into the sun,

then the comparison
between ‘Unpo Man and

Jesus’ will solidify in
my head and my heart.

So in the real world,
beyond just the stupid

joke I made, I actually
do not think ‘Unpo Man’

is a good show for children.
Anything that teaches

kids to solve issues
with violence, as a real

final option is not a
good show. And the fact

that kids actually did
emulate what they saw

that to me that’s a real world
example of why that was not acceptable.

There is another show.
And it’s a show that in

real life I do quite
enjoy. I actually quite

like the songs I like
the stories I actually

quite liked most of what
they did in a show called

Shimajito. Shimajito is
a little tiger and basically

every lesson is be
polite, be kind, be friendly.

That’s kind of a thing I
can get behind as a parent,

as someone who’s
actually watching this show,

hoping that kids pick
up some lessons. They

spend an odd and an
amount of time talking about

toilet training. Like
you need to tell your

parents when your P
bucket is full. And that’s.

a good lesson for the
kid and it’s very helpful

for the parent. If the
kid is very comfortable

telling you, as we’re
about to get in the car, my

P buckets full, then you
can take them, they can go

P, you will solve a problem
before it becomes an

issue. So I appreciated
Shimajito is a little tiger.

This is an anthropomorphic
show. All the characters

in Shimajito are animals
that act like people,

their sentient, they speak,
they walk around, they

have jobs, they do
things, they live their lives.

There’s a girl in his
class, his friends, a little

cat and a little parent
person. There is a raccoon

who’s very selfish, who
has a Butler, apparently

Butler and the goat
in in Japanese, who’s a

play on words, but I don’t
remember it right now.

And then there are two
bully kids in their pigs,

bit on the nose, but
whatever. The interesting

thing to me, when I
started doing an analysis of

this show, just mentally,
so I’m watching the show

with my kids and it’s
not particularly engaging

for the parents. I’m not
the target audience, so

that’s not a complaint.
That’s just the reality.

I think people need to start taking
sort of target audiences into account.

Like if I’m not the target
audience and I don’t

like it, that shouldn’t
be a complaint about the

thing I’m watching, the media I’m watching.
Shimajito’s favorite food is beef steak.

No, it’s not a steak.
Japanese beef steak is

ground beef into a
Patty, they put sort of a

demiglass sauce on
the top, they serve with

rice, he likes ground
beef patties. That’s fine.

But if you listen to what
I had just presented to

you, all the animals in this
show are anthropomorphic

animals and Shimajito’s
favorite food is beef.

Which leads us down a
very dark pan. Because I

either, there are cows,
as we know them, that

are food cows, but for
some reason they are not

anthropomorphic. I don’t
remember ever seeing

a cow in the show.
Or, and this is the really

sort of Sci-Fi dystopian,
soil and green version of

the story. There are
anthropomorphic cows who are

essentially a race of
people. I did always wonder

about crossbreeding.
There are anthropomorphic

cows. They are essentially
their own species. I

don’t know, I was talking
about the crossbreeding.

So because Shimajito
is a tiger and a little

girl in this class is a
cat, but they’re both

anthropomorphic. So could
they get together? Could

the cat get together
with the parent? Or is it

just like animal
species only parrots can

get together or only
tigers can get together?

It would create sort
of barriers, almost racial

species barriers between
the kids. It would create.

difficult aspects to
living sometimes. Because

maybe you fall in love
with someone you can’t

breed with. Will is that the purpose of the
relationship? I don’t know. This is, again,

love doesn’t listen to
genetics, but they’re

living in anthropomorphic
worlds. So they are

different from the animals
we know. So I did kind

of want to know the
rules, but I get it. It’s

kids cartoon show. I’m
not going to get too deep

into it, but the
anthropomorphic cows and beef

being a food stuff in
the show was problematic

to me. Because
there has to be a farm,

which I would probably call an internment
can of anthropomorphic cows that are being

red and raised, murdered
and ground up for food

so that Shimajito can
have beef. And then I was

thinking, is it just
this one, is it just beef

cows? Is it just cows? Are
the cow people somehow

different from the other
ones? Because that led

me back to maybe they
aren’t anthropomorphic,

but I don’t remember
everything in the show. So

we have the two bullies,
the two pig bully kids.

I wondered, okay, do we
ever see them eat pork?

Because that would set
up an in-world rule set.

Like if it’s an
anthropomorphic animal, that

food does not get eaten.
Therefore, they have

laws and rules. If it
is an anthropomorphic

thing and we eat pork,
maybe there are two kinds,

there are non anthropomorphic
pigs, anthropomorphic

pigs and we eat them,
but wouldn’t that be

weird? Because we have
anthropomorphic people and

we would have, I guess,
the closest thing would

be simmians, so some
kind of gorilla or monkey

or something and we eat
those. I can see people

having sort of moral issues with that
because they’re so closely related to us.

I started at that point
looking out for, do they ever

eat pork on the show? Do
they ever bake in? Do they

ever have a ham sandwich,
that kind of stuff? I never

caught them doing it,
but that was at the tail end

of when my kids were
watching Shima Giudos. I didn’t

get to see enough shows
to make a full sample size.

It is something I tried
to look up on the Internet.

Weirdly, I don’t think
anyone else has had these

thoughts. Do they
eat pigs in a show with

anthropomorphic pigs? Do
they eat beef in a show with

anthropomorphic cows?
Has no one ever looked at

that? It made me wonder
why is no one wondered

why Shima Giudos loves
beef so much and then one day,

let’s say if Shima Giudos
goes feral, he’s out in

the world, he sees an
anthropomorphic cow and

he just goes and eats
it. This is a pretty dark

underbelly to the show
which causes me great

concern because what is
the message, the message is

that maybe there are
classes of people, a class

of people that should
not be eaten, a class of

people that should be,
that is acceptable to eat.

Where is the morality in
this world is the question

I’m asking? So we end
up with a soil and green

type situation and I’m
wondering what the world’s

all about because Shima
Giudos really seems like it

lives in a world with no
morals. And at that point,

again, is this a show I
should be showing to my kids?

Because what if my children
have inherited aspects

of my personality, let’s
say, maybe they’ve inherited

some of that analytical
ability and they grow

watching Shima Giudos,
they see Shima Giudos, where

they’re like, “Hey, maybe it’s acceptable
to eat a certain class of people.”.

[Music].

Talk Funny Podcast

[Music]

Okay, comedy. Do you like comedy? No. No, me neither. End of podcast. Yeah,

thanks guys. Bye.

Like and subscribe. So perfect example of British comedy right there.

Actually pretty good.

So I want to tell you a joke that I learned in Korea and it was illustrative

. Illustrative? Illustrative.

Illustrative. Illustrates. It’s I don’t know how to say the word that is in

my head. It’s a real word.

Illustrates. Illustrative. No. Illustrates. Yeah. What are you talking about

? No, there’s another way. There’s like a fancier way to say it.

This is a high class podcast man. All right, we got to use the word. We got

to use the three dollar words man.

So illustrative. Illustrative. Illustrative. No, illustrative makes it

sounds like it’s shiny. Yeah, it is shiny. This joke is shiny.

So I was I lived in Korea and they told me a joke and the joke made no sense

to me until a year after I left I talked to a Korean friend and I asked them

about this joke and they’re like, oh that’s a really famous joke and it’s

really funny.

So the joke is there’s a father and a son walking on a mountain side and the

father’s walking ahead and the son’s about you know 10 feet behind.

And they’re going to take their wares to the town to sell them and up on a

cliff there’s a giant Boulder. The giant Boulder gets shaken loose and rolls

down the side of the mountain and crushes the old man flat. He’s dead.

Guts everywhere. It’s horrendous and

then the Boulder continues on and rolls.

all the way down the hill. The rest of the hilarious. Nice. Well done.

No, the punchline. Oh, sorry. The son says. Dad look out. Oh, that’s it. And

then like in then Korean people thought that was really funny.

Now I learned like a year later. So I heard that joke. I was like, I don’t

get it. There’s something missing.

These people came from this town where they are famous for speaking slowly.

So it was like the massive pause was part

of the joke. But that to me was very clear.

It illustrates that culture and context make humor. So the instant you’re

outside of that, things that other people are just losing their minds on you

like I don’t to get it.

No, yeah, shed experience, culture norms. So if you ever had a similar

experience or like because we talked before about not on the podcast we’ve

talked before about when you meet someone who just doesn’t get jokes.

Like they don’t seem to have a sense of humor. Like there’s lots of stuff

that maybe I don’t find funny, but I get it to joke and I get there.

Maybe there’s stuff that’s technically funny, but I don’t laugh because I

don’t find it funny. But I wouldn’t be like that’s not funny. I’d be like

that’s not funny to me.

Not funny to me, but I’ve met a few people who just don’t seem to get any

jokes. Like you make a joke and they just look at you.

And then some people will analyze the other girl like that doesn’t make

sense. Yeah, like something meant to.

I tell you it’s so weird to me because I’m always looking to laugh. It’s

weird to me that that’s someone’s life. Yeah. Wow, how depressing.

It is to us, but to them it’s fine. Like they just, they don’t, that’s it.

They just live without humor and that’s how they live.

Yeah, I know. I can’t, I can’t actually can’t think of anyone really that I.

‘ve met that didn’t have at least a sense of humor. Even if it’s one that I

didn’t understand.

Yeah, one that I didn’t get. That’s fine. I understand that. There was one

time someone came at me because I post a lot of stuff on the Internet.

So sooner or later people try to like take shots at you and it was I made a

joke and it was sort of on the border of being dirty and gross.

And they came at me and they were like, so the story was like it’s the in

Japanese high schools part of the dress

code is you have to wear white underwear.

But that ignores the fact that that means sooner or later someone has to

check the color of the underwear. Yeah. And so the joke is that you know

gross pervy men they want to get in this job so they can check underwear.

So essentially it was a story and then exaggerated premise as the joke. So.

what is the worst extreme you could take the situation to and that that

exaggeration is supposed to be the humor.

And I get that that’s not for everyone. And I think this person came at me

like is that your solution? I was like no, that’s a joke. And then they kind

of like repeated they came at it again.

I was like do you understand the joke?

It’s like I understand the joke. It was very simple. But that’s not a good

solution. And I was like well actually your statements right now just

contradict each other because it’s not a solution.

The solution was about two minutes prior to this. Yeah, this was a joke. And

then they kept saying like they get it

to joke but then they could talk about it.

I was really tempted to keep this going and go like can you explain the joke

to me so that I actually believe you but then I just gave up.

Yeah, because they were actually that they do not get it. They were not

going to get it at any time soon.

Yeah, but that’s interesting again because that is a type of humor that I.

find fascinating and like very funny where you insert absurdity into a

situation to laugh about it.

Yeah, to me it’s the more serious the thing you extrapolate the more egreg.

ious example is funny.

Yeah, it’s funny because it’s absurd but it’s also funny because you can.

imagine that maybe somebody out there

is thinking that and that is also funny.

Well, in the news, Japan a lot of it is based on creepy dudes. There’s a lot

of creepy dude stories and that’s the stuff it’s fun to talk about but it’s

fun to talk about because it’s like how do these guys navigate society?

Yeah, how do they get to this world where but then they do they end up in

these jobs like they’re like oh you have

to check girls underwear. I want that job.

Yeah, like even if it’s like a fringe thing that they do every now and then

that’s like the whole purpose, the whole reason that they got there.

Yeah, and it’s like what how does that drive you mad? And that’s funny

because it’s not normal.

Yeah, and the thing I think it’s funny because they’re dead serious and

everyone else would be like that is a ridiculous idea.

Yeah, but that’s not really comedy.

That’s just an example of humor.

Yeah, talking of like stuff that I never really got like when I moved lived

around the world a lot moved.

I was too young and I didn’t really experience like jokes in those cultures

because I was living with like other forces kids so it was mostly English.

But since living in Japan I’ve definitely

bumped up against not getting humor.

So to describe Japanese humor, I say like they still do the duo team like

they have the straight guy and the guy who makes the jokes and then they

slap his head.

Which I’ve always hated. I don’t understand that.

And then that to me has an old almost 1950s feeling to it.

These duo groups.

And the other to me primary form of humor in Japan is repetition.

So they’ll say one thing funny, it becomes a catch phrase and that’s all

they do for an entire year to the point where everyone hates it.

There is a lot of catch phrasing in Japanese humor.

I cannot stand it.

Yeah, there’s a lot of…

And it’s also very child, they do a lot of like child, if you were?

Yeah, it’s kind of like a very physical humor kind of gross like people call

it toilet humor.

The stuff that’s on TV, like comedians

and stuff, I just don’t find funny at all.

So I find it a bit.

Like because I have no problem with like toilet humor but I just don’t find

their brand of it interesting or engaging.

Yeah, so it’s just very crude, it’s stuff about weight.

There’s lots of like physical appearance stuff.

Lots of body shaming stuff.

So we both teach classes, we both teach English classes and then I have

found that if I want to make my Japanese students laugh, I make a joke about

my receding hairline.

Yeah.

Anything body shaming oriented is really funny.

So overweight is funny, two skinnies funny, losing your hair is funny, kind

of being ugly is funny.

Funny, yep.

And so they… that again, it all feels

very old to me, like it hasn’t developed.

Which is in line with my thinking about like Japanese music is still stuck

in the 60s or 70s.

Their pop music is just not progressed beyond… I would actually, I guess,

the 80s is where they were stuck.

If you have a song from 1980 in a song that was on the radio yesterday is

brand new, it would sound exactly the same to me.

But when it comes to like person to person and like general life, there’s

actually a lot of funny stuff in Japan.

Like I love the Oyaji Gagu, but they’re just puns, they’re that jokes.

Yep, like what we call, and they are pretty funny, like word play.

Word play is good in Japanese.

It’s really good.

And they can do a lot of it.

Yeah.

And then there’s a thing, I don’t know if you know it, Daku-Go.

No, I have to explain it for the audience anyways, even if I did.

I actually don’t.

I probably have heard of it, but I don’t realize it.

But we have to explain everything just to be safe.

It’s just a tradition in Japan, telling long, comical stories that have like

foolish characters and like, like, they make social faux pas.

They’re actually kind of funny.

But that kind of stuff isn’t like the modern media.

It’s not there, like they’re just more like traditional, like, you go and

see someone in a small town hall, like they don’t put it in.

Yeah, they do have like hotels and stuff.

Yeah.

My wife watches, or she used to, I actually hasn’t watched it recently, but

they do do this like essentially comedy competition.

They get like two or three comedians on, and they have categories.

They have like, “Mine, so do it without seeing any words.”

They have like improv skits and stuff.

And you had to make X amount of audience members laugh to succeed.

And they would focus the camera on one person.

If you make that one person laugh, you get like a point or you win.

Yeah.

They fail so often.

Yeah.

And my wife, I don’t think I, she watched it every week for a couple months

at least, or maybe a couple of years.

I don’t think I ever saw her laugh once.

And I was like, “Is this funny? Like, I

don’t get it, so I don’t want to judge.”

But you’re not laughing.

She goes, “Yeah, most of this is not very funny.”.

And it’s because they’re asking people to do it on the fly.

And then, if you’re a funny person, you should be able to do it.

It should be.

Because I agree with you.

When they do stories, when they talk about just daily life stories,

it’s sometimes really, really funny.

Because they’re so concerned in Japan about

etiquette and social full pause and stuff.

And they get into situations, usually trying to do something so they don’t

get in trouble.

They get more trouble. It’s a pretty common story.

Doing something trying to not embarrass yourself and therefore embarrassing

yourself more happens a lot.

Those storytellers are good.

Yeah.

But funny.

Yeah, really, really funny.

The puns, the puns are great.

I find those really, really fun.

But just the stuff on TV and like the stuff that people see, like in the

world, from a Japanese humor, I’m like, “Oh, it’s so poor.”

Some of it is because when they do weird stuff, and people find it really

funny, that usually gets like viral on the Internet.

People will talk to me, “Oh, Japan’s so weird and funny.”

And I’m like, “Well, actually, it’s weird and funny in Japan too.”.

Like, it comes from here, but it is weird.

And Japanese people, it’s not like they think this is normal humor.

They think it’s weird too. That’s why it’s funny.

All right, so you okay?

But overall, Western humor, again, I kind of had this conversation with my

wife, so it was interesting because she was like, “What do you like?”

Because I watch a lot of comedy on the Internet.

And I’m like, “To me, peak comedy is now storytelling. That’s funny.”

And so it loops back and it has callbacks and it has things, but it’s like a

five-ten-minute story that takes you on this little journey.

It’s not jokes anymore.

I actually think modern comedy actually

isn’t jokes as much as it used to be .

See, for me, that’s an American, like an North American comedy style.

Because Jimmy Cot.

He’s not. He’s like spit-balling.

Yeah, I don’t find him funny unless he’s talking to people.

Yeah. So when he does a comedy special, I’ll watch it and be like, “Oh, it’s

just one-liner.”

And it doesn’t do it for me.

But that’s what I can watch it once and laugh my ass off.

And then I’ll never watch it again.

And then the second, third time, I see it coming, so it’s like, “Yeah, it’s

non-has funny.”.

Because to me, Eddie Isard put on some of the bass comedy shows.

He tells full stories and then comes back and drops things back in.

And I can’t remember his name.

There’s this one comedian from England and he just…

He will literally tell a 20-minute long story.

And then it just altifies him.

It’s not Ross Noble, is it?

He does that shit. He’ll tell a story

and it basically starts at the beginning.

And he finishes the show with the end of it.

And everything in between is just him getting sidetracked.

Seems like tangents, even though it’s probably out of planned out.

Now, I watched a couple of…

He talks about the craft of comedy a lot.

And there was one and he was talking about someone eating and going,

and he did it for way too long.

It’s one of those things where it’s funny, it’s not funny, but it’s going to

be funny again.

But then he stopped and goes, “He looks at someone in the audience, he goes,

“Every time you look at your watch, I start again.”.

And then he kept going.

So he was literally at that point making fun of one guy in the audience.

And that’s actually next level stuff.

Yeah.

I guess I don’t know.

So what do you think about British comedy?

What do you think if you’re going to kind of define it?

I don’t know.

I think there’s a lot of self-degradation.

Yes.

The “butt” the joke is usually the person telling the joke.

But there’s also a lot of…

I don’t know.

We all like to pull each other down, but in a friendly, fun way.

That’s why heckling is such a big thing in the UK.

When people want comedians to rip them.

Yeah, because they think it’s funny.

They think it’s funny.

“Take the piss out of me, man.”

Yeah.

So funny.

Because Jimmy Carls, essentially, that’s part of his show.

Yeah, he just plays the floor.

Everyone tried to shout something and I’ll rip it.

Yeah.

So there’s a lot of that.

There’s a lot of like… denigrating each other.

I don’t know.

Denigrating is the wrong word.

Well, putting yourself down.

Self-denigrating.

Yeah.

And then I find a lot of satire, irony and sarcasm.

Those are very British traits, I think.

Like satire…

For me, there’s always been in the UK.

But I feel like it’s the last decade or so

in America that started to take off more.

But I don’t personally know, because I never really watched American TV

comedy and stuff like Daily Show.

Like this week tonight or whatever.

Last week, this… Is it the day you did?

Last week tonight, yeah.

Then I was like, most of them are hosted by Brits or Brits adjacent people.

Yeah.

Trevor Noah is not British, but he was

clearly spent so much time in England .

He had basically a British accent at times.

The guy I was thinking about, I just looked it up.

It’s stewardly.

For example.

That’s how you know we’re heading into

a fairly tight-y written bit, isn’t it?

Use of the phrase, for example, that’s the giveaway there.

Anyway.

For example, what?

Something you’ve written?

Yes.

So… Anyway.

So, for example, I know it seems to contrived now, doesn’t it?

For example.

What?

You know, anyway.

For example.

Yeah, he says that.

It’s like, you dad, isn’t it?

For example.

Put that over there.

Anyway.

Stuart Lee is… Yeah, he’s really dark.

I love him.

Yeah.

But he does.

Yeah.

He’s like, “I love him.”

Yeah.

He’s like, “I love him.”

Yeah.

He’s really dark.

I love him.

Yeah.

But he does, he does like, full on 10, 15-minute stories with jokes in them.

And I really enjoy that.

It’s funny, because his start was just a sketch show on TV.

Like, the… The… Oh, he was his partner.

But I remember them.

They had some real, like, when I was like a kid.

They had this really weird TV show, and there was a lot of like, catch

phrases and stuff in there.

I guess only ran for a couple of seasons.

So, who is your favourite British comedian, man?

Bill Bailey’s up there.

The… The minor key?

Scales.

The… The building blocks of music.

The minor scales, much more evocative.

The beautiful melodic minor.

The hopeful accent.

The depressing decent.

Things are looking happy and joyful.

No, they’re not there to praise again, please.

It’s a harmonic minor with that little Indian ragga at the end.

It’s impossible to play that without playing this.

Bill Bailey’s good.

Sean Locke.

Yeah, Sean Locke.

I… I don’t really like his stand-up.

Yeah.

I like him on TV.

Him talking was way funnier than any stand-up he ever did.

Do you in skiing gear?

So, I’ve got a beard and a Viking horns.

And this is kind of my look.

So much more comfortable.

And it’s warm.

And you just don’t have to have that awkward social, is that you?

Is it not?

How’s Jimmy?

That kind of thing.

That’s a challenging wank.

I think so too.

And so he was clearly just always funny.

But it’s almost like when he organized it, it was less.

Yeah.

His stand-up was planned out as I was like, no, knowing that he’s saying

stuff on the fly in the moment and it’s so funny.

To me, it was impressive.

It was so much better.

Yeah, no, I love him.

Like I said, Jay must be rectum of the year.

Not really, yeah.

No, no, it’s different.

This is rear of the air with the gloves off.

I knew I’d run when I heard three of the judges throwing up behind me.

I thought, I’ve got this in the bag.

Sure.

I’ve been… Sure.

A big phone call.

There it is.

Let me tell you, hers is pretty messed up.

I’m speaking.

I mean, of course.

That got me through to the world.

So, I got to the… Went to the world finals in Cancun.

Cancun?

I thought I was going to win.

I thought I was going to win this.

And then, Jay, go Maradona beat me.

We need to bend over, set the sprinkers off.

There’s a lot, though, I like, for different reasons.

I like Simon Anstel.

He used to host Nevermind the Buzzcocks

and he was, like, bitingly sarcastic .

Like, hammer to the face sarcastic.

Like, he had people walk off the show.

I think I’ve seen clips on the Internet.

I think he had a guy in his show and then the…

That guy’s ex-girlfriend wrote a book.

And he started reading, like, bits of the book to him.

But it was so sarcastic away.

Well, because, of course, she was like a… Like a model.

So, she’s lazy, yes.

Even the book is bad as it was, was

probably ghost-written and it was still bad.

The parents’ Hilton work was a low point for me.

It wasn’t what I wanted to be doing.

And on top of that, it caused me some real problems with my hair.

[Laughter]

What?

So good.

Haven’t you read it?

I don’t want to spoil the ending for you.

[Applause]

The photo shoot was for the Daily Mail,

which made me feel really posh and upmarket.

Are you going to see it like I’m… What?

Oh, no, pressing.

No, seriously, I don’t.

Press, we’re having fun!

Come on, press, don’t.

Oh, no, we can’t lose press, don’t.

Yeah.

I know.

And the dude who walked off wasn’t particularly smart, I don’t think.

No, it was clear that he almost wanted him to leave the shot.

And I like the absurdist stuff.

I really enjoy the mighty bush and the…

Like, Vick and Bob, but as the older they got…

Like Reeves and Mortimer, they got less funny.

I think they just had to force it more.

That’s another thing with humor, right?

You can’t force it.

Yeah, and you also have to want to do it.

I bet comedians at times, it’s like this is a job now.

And then there’s also the problem with getting rich.

Is you kind of get weirdly out of touch.

Yeah, same with actually, that’s really similar with music, I find.

When they start and they young and passionate and they’ve got a fire.

And then they start making money.

Well, that’s essentially what happened to George Lucas.

Because he made Star Wars and he got super famous in everything he’s genius.

And then he made the prequels and there’s like, what is this?

And I thought it was interesting because I saw a documentary.

And it was showing them making the original Star Wars.

And they got models and they’re running

cameras and they’re in the desert and stuff.

Like, it was hard.

And then they showed him making the prequels the first one.

And he’s sitting in a chair in front of a giant green screen drinking.

He’s fat and he’s drinking Starbucks.

Yeah, being fined by naked Swedish models.

Yeah, but it’s just like at this point, he’s not.

The passion that was in that first project is not in this project.

It was interesting.

Who’s your favorite British comedian?

Oh, Sean Locke.

I could watch him talk to anyone about anything for hours.

And when he died and the compilation videos

came out, I watched the whole of them.

And the comedians would talk about their favorite moment.

He was clearly a comedian’s comedian.

A comedian.

Which is weird because I’ve heard that a couple of times.

There’s like musicians.

It’s a musician who musicians like but normal people don’t as much.

And then there’s comedians that comedians love but everyone else is like, oh

yeah, it’s funny.

But it’s like, we as just normal people, civilians are missing something

that comedians who do this for a living get.

And it was a…

Yeah, I think Katz, when Sean would go

and everyone was just crying on the panel.

Yeah.

And he just doesn’t stop.

Jimmy Carr was talking about him after he died and he was talking about like

how it was just constant and it was relentless.

And he was like, if he had an idea, he would go.

And then one of the ones that revealed to me is it was one of these panel

shows and he’s got a partner.

And then his partner starts laughing really hard and then Jimmy Carr goes

like, what are you doing?

And he goes, well, I can’t sit next to Sean.

And he goes, why?

And he leaned over and he goes, you know, Hitler wasn’t all bad.

And he’s like just to make this guy not be able to concentrate on what he’s

supposed to doing.

On to our first numbers round.

Okay, John and Sarah go to pick the numbers.

Sean, Miles.

Sean and Miles, I wouldn’t say it again.

Fingers on lips.

Hands on heads.

Pay attention, it’s the numbers round.

Yeah, ready. I’m ready.

What are you ready?

No.

He’d brought up Hitler.

He was whispering to me about Hitler.

Why was he whispering to you about Hitler?

He said, I don’t know about you, Miles, I’m on the fence.

I’m not saying it.

What is wrong?

I don’t know if it’s him, no, Sean.

I’m afraid I’d just Swiss during the second round walk, okay?

I could see the good side and the bad side.

I’m gonna say neutral.

Okay, on to our first number.

Oh no.

It’s so good.

There’s another dude who I could just sit and listen to his Richard Ayawati.

Yeah, he’s amazing.

It’s funny because in the IT crowd, he’s fine.

It’s just like a comedy show.

It’s like an mediocre.

But then when he talks about anything, it’s amazing.

And then he just sand pouring from his mouth.

It’s so dry.

And he did an interview on the BBC about, I think he had a book come out.

The guy started asking me these questions and he goes, this isn’t real.

This doesn’t matter.

And he just started deconstructing the interview.

So this is an advertisement.

So, you know, these heavy questions are irrelevant.

Like you just started like destroying what the guy was putting out there.

In a way, the books are comic book about film really.

It’s not a deconstruction of the idea of interviews, particularly.

Hopefully it’s a container for jokes that is themed around film.

So it’s not about Richard Ayawati at all?

No.

Any more than the most story by Woody Allen

is about his grappling with Wild land.

And he’s like making it almost impossible to interview, which was awesome.

I think I’ve seen that.

Yeah, that was good.

Now he’s fascinating, man.

Because he holds it together so well.

Yeah, he never breaks.

He never seems to.

Yeah, I bet making him laugh is really satisfying.

Because just people who don’t laugh.

If you can make them laugh, it’s just better.

Because I was watching some interview show probably like Conan or something.

And it was a comedian who worked with Ice Cube.

He’s like, Ice Cube never breaks.

He’s always just like at that dead scowly face on.

And he goes, “If the day you make him…”

And he would come in every day and say, “I just want to make him laugh once,

just once.”

And that was like his goal.

And he’s like, “If you can make him smile, it’s like your whole day.”

Yeah, he’s awesome.

All right, well then let’s move across the pond.

Yes.

North America.

It’s harder.

It’s so much harder.

I actually have more favorite British comedians than American ones.

There’s always American stuff I like, something they’ve done, but I don’t

like everything.

Yeah.

So probably the most famous comedian right now is Dave Chappelle.

He has bits, jokes, and stories I like, but actually often his whole thing.

Now, I actually like him less than I used to.

I think he’s kind of lost touch in a weird way.

He used to be funnier to me.

I don’t know if I’ve changed or he’s

changed, but he has gotten like wicked rich.

Yeah.

No, yeah, definitely.

I find him interesting.

I like the way he does tell stories as well.

But Bill Burr is probably the most

legendary American comedian at the moment .

Yeah.

Yeah, and I don’t think, even if I disagree

with what he says, I still it’s still funny.

He just has this angry, mad delivery that is captivating at times, but can

be a bit too much as well at times.

Yes.

You’re like, “Oh, stop shouting.”

But what he does though is he tries to push everything to this edge where

the audience is uncomfortable, and then he somehow still brings it back.

Like, Dave Chappelle has people who hate him.

Bill Burr actually doesn’t seem to have that.

No, I think you’re right.

Like, yeah.

People hate Chappelle, but people go, “No, Bill Burr is.”.

He just says things, and then I don’t know how he does it.

Dude, there is an epidemic of gold dig and whores in this country.

And every night I put on the news, and I wait for someone to address it.

Every night, you never see it.

You know?

Every night I bring up gold dig and whores, and the whole crowd pulls back,

like I’m up here talking about Bigfoot.

Right?

Like I’m saying, the moons made out of cheese or something.

Talking about whores, people.

They’re everywhere.

How many?

How many more great men are going to get

chopped and half before we do something?

Why is it so quiet in here?

Well, he goes. He goes. He goes. He goes.

And then he’ll either turn around and come back, or he’ll come at it from a

different angle and show you the exact same story or something.

And he’s like, there’s always like two, three ways to say it.

I watched an interview with him, and he said like one of the most concerning

things is when he comes out of a club or something.

And somebody goes, “You know, you think

it, I think it, but you say it out loud.”

And he’s like, “Oh, that guy doesn’t get it.”

He thinks like all this, like I hate women stuff is serious, and he thinks,

“Yeah, that’s not a guy I want to be.”

Because so he knows it’s a show, whereas some of his audience maybe doesn’t.

It’s the problem.

It’s hard, isn’t it?

It’s comedy.

Well, it’s hard because you’re supposed

to be pushing boundaries, but modern.

society is in a place where pushing boundaries is wrong.

So like you can’t make fun of pronouns, you can’t make fun of stuff because

it’s really important to social issues.

It’s like, “But that’s the stuff you should be making fun of.”

And then like that’s on the liberal side, and then on the conservative side

you should be making fun of them.

And like it should be both sides.

Yeah, because comedy is a great way to process stuff with e-links.

Because what are terms with things?

Yeah, Tim Jeffries.

Jim Jeffries.

Jim Jeffries. There you go. Jim Jeffries is correct.

Yeah, Jim Jeffries, I saw him in Tokyo.

How did you?

Yeah, I paid like $500 or $600.

I got a ticket, and I had to buy the shinkansen and stuff, and I went and

did a day trip out there.

It was awesome. He was awesome.

It was the audience was all disgusting.

I hated everyone in the audience.

It was all these foreign people, and they were all doing their best to drink

as much as possible in public right before the show,

and then sneak alcohol in.

And it was just disgusting.

It was the worst of Western behavior.

Maybe I’ve been in Japan too long.

I was just looking at him going, “You shouldn’t be doing that.”

You should pick up your bottle.

If you’re going to drink, you should at least carry your cans up.

But they were all putting them on the floor and just walking out.

And there was a lady, two rows of infirmity, who would not shut up.

I almost threw something out.

But his show was good.

His show was good.

And he’s one of those guys.

He just pushes boundaries as much as possible.

So maybe that’s what I like.

I like people who are like pushing.

Yeah, it’s interesting to see how far people will go.

Because I wouldn’t be that brave yet.

I don’t have enough money.

You have to be financially secured to really push boundaries.

Really push boundaries.

I remember with Jimmy Kars’ new show came out and he went,

“This is the one that’s going to get me canceled.”

And it’s like, “But why do you care? You’re rolling it.”

That dude, isn’t he?

Yeah, how much money?

Because he had, if you looked at British, he was like,

“Have five or six shows he was hosting?”

Yeah.

He was getting a ton of money for that.

He wasn’t paying any taxes on it.

Yeah.

I’ve never been to a live comedy show.

I’ve only been to a few.

Because there’s no, being in Japan for so long, there’s no comedy clubs.

I did five minutes of stand up at an open mic night once.

Did you?

Yeah, it was funny.

Not good, funny.

It was funny for you, not for everyone watching.

Actually, no, I got a fairly positive response.

I’m not going to say it was like, “obrurious.”

But I have a friend who, his whole deal is like,

“Let’s find what you’re uncomfortable with and make you do it.”

And I went back to visit Canada and we were in Vancouver

and he’s like, “You do this stupid podcast.

Why don’t you go up and do five minutes of just your podcast material

and see if anyone laughs.”

And I was like, “Okay.”

So I took the Hulk stuff and I tried to make a five minute set out of it.

And then I was sitting at the bar and so nervous.

Like, this was terrifying.

I’d never done anything like this before.

And there’s a guy who is talking to me.

He’s being really friendly and polite.

So I’m talking to him.

He’s like, “He’s going up after me.”.

And he, I realized about halfway through,

he’s trying to undermine my confidence.

He started like, “Oh yeah, man.

Everyone bombs the first time and you’ll get past it.”

And I was like, “I haven’t bombed yet, so maybe that’s not right.”

So then I did, I don’t know.

My friend said that it was a very Peter thing to do.

I just threw out all the material I prepared,

walked up and started making fun of that guy.

So I was like, “Hey, I was just sitting down there and that guy just said

this and this and this.”

And he basically just said like, “He’s an asshole and stuff.”

And everyone actually found that really funny.

I didn’t get massive applause or anything,

but there was only like 20 people in the club.

So I do my fail five minutes come down.

He comes up after me.

He goes, “That guy is a bit of an asshole.”

And then this dude in the audience goes, “Nah, he seems all right.”.

So I was like, “Oh, I kind of won that one.”

I mean, I didn’t, again, my comedy career didn’t take off,

but at least I beat one guy.

Yeah.

Got it, yeah.

But that was, yeah, that was the,

I was so angry when I realized what he was doing to me.

Because it was just such a shit thing to do.

Like he wanted me to– I don’t think that, like, “Oh, I don’t worry.

Everyone fucks up the first time.”

It’s like reassuring.

And it’s like– No, you’re saying.

Yeah, you’re saying.

Like I’m talking about– Yeah, if you fucked up.

Yeah.

If you actually went up and you bombed,

which honestly with the Hulk material was very likely.

Because these weren’t, these were like bits that I thought were funny

that I’ve tried to craft into jokes.

And I’ve never written a joke before.

So probably if I’d gone with my original thing, I would have bombed.

But because this guy set me off, I just shit

on that guy, which I was pretty good at.

And since that felt more natural and in the moment,

everyone else was laughing along with me.

And I think that’s real key to humor as well, right?

Yeah.

Again, it just coming naturally.

Because I do– You would have forced that Hulk stuff,

and everyone would have gone, “Oh, well,

maybe I probably would have gone, “I get it.”

They wouldn’t have laughed.

Like I get where the joke is.

He just hasn’t done it yet.

He hasn’t made enough jokes in his life to make that a joke.

But I get that the premise is solid.

Like I think everyone would have been like,

“That’s a good idea.

I don’t think anyone would have laughed.”

But yeah, like we do–

In our company, we do the annual meetings.

It’s like 100 people, and I got to go up and say stuff in front of them.

And a couple of times people have heckled me.

Like said stuff, and I just tear them apart.

And it’s just because I’m not going to look bad here.

I got my bosses, I got my co-workers, I

got all the other people who work with us.

I can’t let you make me look bad right now.

And then I’m like, the problem is not going

too far, so that I become the bad guy.

Yeah.

Do you think humor is appropriate in almost any situation?

Well, it depends on the type of humor.

Let’s separate that personally.

Yeah, it can be.

I think you can make a joke anytime anywhere,

but it has to be appropriate to this.

Like you have to know the other people,

you have to know what they find funny.

So like if I’m making a joke at work in front of 100 people,

it’s got to be pretty innocent, to be honest,

they can’t because there’s 99 people could be offended.

Yeah, no.

I can innocent joke in a work situation.

Yeah.

But like would you laugh?

Like I don’t know, like if someone in my family died,

and they were at the funeral,

100% it.

I would make a joke because I knew that that would be the right thing to do.

Yes, like yes.

Because I would…

I would absolutely hope that in my funeral people were making jokes.

Yeah.

And I think everyone who would maybe attend

would know that that, I would feel that that was appropriate

and the best thing to do.

One of my podcasts was about eulogizing everyone I know.

Yeah.

And I was like the closer you are,

the more you like someone, the easier it is to write their eulogy.

Because you have things instantly that you would love to say

to share with everyone else.

And then some were not, again, comedy,

but it was borderline amusing or it was good stories or stuff.

The goal would be like, here are all the positive, funny memories we had.

We can laugh at them together.

Yeah.

And then like other people it was really, really hard

because all I had was like, they were a kind person.

And like even saying it, like you just

like, I clearly don’t even believe that.

Yeah.

So I think, yeah, if you… It’s rapid

water, but you can navigate it for sure.

And come through unscathed.

I would much rather be surrounded by people who would prefer to be commemor.

ated in comedy rather than teased.

100%.

I don’t want people sad at my thing.

I just want them to sit down and have to watch every podcast I’ve ever read.

Like, ah, God thinking about it.

The stuff I would do, well this is 10 weird.

If I was like, I’m going to die soon.

I would start taking really weird portraits to have like, like, on around,

like with me, like doing stupid shit.

Or like, I don’t know, like pencils, up my nose or whatever.

Oh, they have a couple of websites where you set a picture of your dog and

they put your dog in like a Renaissance picture.

Yeah, I’ve seen those.

Yeah, I actually wanted to get one of those of Dave, but I was like,

actually me and a military uniform, you really funny.

And have that as, because you know in

Japan, they have the big shrine like thing.

And they put a picture up there and I don’t have it.

It’s a really dead serious picture.

I’m like, where do they get those?

Yeah.

Like, how did they take that picture?

So I was like, ah, actually, I could, if

I made the picture in advance of me .

I’m just in a lobster outfit.

Oh, I was thinking in general’s uniform, like, look really like I had been

in like an Napoleonic war.

And something like that.

And everyone would look at it and like, you know they could end up in the

100%.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And realistically, no one would really say anything, but everyone would be

like, ah, fuck, he did that on purpose.

Like, everyone would know he did that.

And I think I would think that was funny.

Yeah.

Doing stuff on purpose that other people can’t laugh at in the moments,

pretty funny to me.

It’s really funny.

And I make a lot of jokes that other people don’t get because it’s a

reference, it’s actually a reference for myself or something.

Or like, I’ll make a joke in a group that only one person will get.

And to me, that’s almost funnier because they laugh and that’s it.

Yeah, I never know what I was saying.

Like, what?

That doesn’t make sense.

So, I guess inside jokes, but that’s the nature of inside jokes is just

showing sort of your, your together.

Your relationship.

Yeah.

All right, so, what we talked about like Japan and like Asia and UK and

America, like the separation of comedy.

But what do you think connects comedy?

What do you think the things that connect all comedy are?

Do you think that is anything?

Yes.

Because we’re all humans.

Yeah.

Fundamental desire to do something right and failing is universal.

So I think every joke, like universally, if you’re going to do universal

jokes that everyone could get,

it’d be like, I tried really hard and failed is universally pretty funny.

Especially if you, or like, I did it wrong.

Whatever I was supposed to do, I just did it wrong and through my own inept

itude or I was an idiot jokes, are you pretty universal?

Yeah.

And then, yeah, because every culture has you make funnier friends, but you

‘re making funnier friends, quirks or foibles and stuff.

So, that kind of all works out.

So the other one for me is, is language.

Whilst we might not understand jokes from other languages, the fact that

language is something that people find humor in,

like subvert and get and switching, like meanings.

So I know one Japanese jokes that translates to English perfectly.

So it makes the same amount of sense in English and Japanese. It’s kind of a

kid’s joke.

So it’s a mother and a child are on the train and the door is closed and the

child looks at the mom and says,

“Mom, I have to pee.” She goes, “Why didn’t you tell me faster?” And he.

looks at her and goes, “Mom, I have to pee.”.

I’m going to have to pee.

And you can do that in Japanese.

And it’s the exact same joke and it makes the exact…

Yeah, so it was like, “Hi, kuyute.” So

it’s like, you should have said it faster.

And then the kid, then you just say the last line faster.

And it’s…

Let’s push that.

The exact same joke and it’s just as funny. Like, it’s not an awesome joke,

but the fact that it 100% translates.

I was like, “Ah, I bet you could do that joke in a lot of languages.”.

Yeah.

No, that’s true.

Yeah, like that, like…

I think that’s another thing with humor,

right? It’s subverting expectations .

Because everyone’s like, “Ah, you should have told me faster.”

Yeah.

And then the kid just says it faster.

And that’s not what people were expecting, right?

I think that’s pretty universal in all humor too.

This is that you have to subvert an expectation somehow.

Like the Korean joke you told earlier.

Yeah.

Everyone’s expecting you to care about your father being crushed by a rock.

Yeah.

Just says, “Watch out.”

Dad, watch out.

You have to say that part really slowly as well.

Dad.

Watch out.

I guess just dunking on other people is kind of universal to them.

Yeah, but it’s a Korean joke.

And I know like people do that in Japan.

They dunk on people from other parts of the country, right?

But it’s also punching up and down is also universal that I’ve seen.

So like, you can make fun of people who are on higher positions and stuff

and it’s okay.

If you are bullying or punching down on people, most cultures that I’ve…

How many of my experience actually not that many?

But it’s frowned upon.

Like it’s not only bullies find bully jokes funny,

but everyone finds making fun of people stronger than you funny.

And self-deprecation is pretty universal.

You can make funny yourself and everyone will be like, “Ha-ha-ha.”.

Because that’s safer.

I don’t think that is universal.

I disagree there.

I don’t know enough.

Like I know the places I’ve been.

And basically everywhere I’ve been, if I

make fun of myself, people think it ‘s funny.

Do you have a favorite joke?

A favorite…oh man, come on.

No?

I mean, I don’t know.

Some of my favorite jokes are just like the really shitty ones.

Yeah, give me one.

Even if it’s one, you would tell your kids.

Since I was a kid, I’ve really liked this one.

What’s brown and sticky?

Oh no.

What? A stick.

Oh yes, I actually heard that.

Of course I heard that one.

Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always liked that one.

Remember my mum’s reaction.

She’s like, “Ugh, I don’t know. It’s a stick.”

And she’s like, “Ugh.”.

So you can have a joke about having sex with sheep or a joke about having

sex with camels.

Oh, just do both.

Okay, so I’ll do them fast, which probably isn’t as good.

There’s a sheep researcher going around from country to country and doing

research on sheep and health and stuff.

And then they have this sort of subsection of research they want to do about

do Shepherds actually have sex with sheep.

So they kind of pull the Shepherd aside.

So he’s in England and he goes…he

goes to the Shepherd and he’s like, “Ugh .”

So just, you know, I’m down low.

Do you have sex with sheep?

And he goes, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

And he kind of happens. He goes, “Well, how do you do it?”

And he goes, “What do you do is you take their hind legs and you stick them

in your boots.”

And then you can have sex with them so they can’t run away.

And they’re like, “Oh, okay, they’re worth that deal.”

Went to Australia.

Our New Zealand New Zealand has more sheep.

Went to New Zealand and does all the research and then says to them, “You

know, on the down low, do you want to enjoy

some sort of sex with sheep a little bit?”

And it happens. And you’re out here

on the paddock. It’s very lonely. So you.

grab the sheep by the back legs and you put it in your boots and you can

have sex with the sheep that way.

“Oh, okay, so that’s maybe that’s universal.” And he goes to Wales and he.

talks to a Shepherd and he goes, “So, do you go through all his research?”

So on the down low, do you take the sheep’s back legs and put them in your

boots and have sex with them?

And he goes, “Well, how do you kiss them?”.

“I really enjoy the idea of people kissing sheep.”.

And the other one is the French foreign legion and they’re in the desert and

there’s a new recruit and they’ve been out there and they’re in the fort.

They’ve been there for a while and he goes, “So, when you guys get your man

ly urges, what do you do?”

And they go, “Oh, we got the camel.”

He goes, “Oh, it’s disgusting.” He like.

ignores, walks away and he’s offended by this.

And then a couple days later, they’re sitting around the fire and he goes,”

No, no, seriously guys, you gotta take care of yourselves. What do you do?”

And he goes, “Well, we got the camel. Just take the camel.” And he’s like,”

Oh, it’s a terrible horrendous idea.”

And he’s like, “I’m really offended.” But now we’re like, then it’s like a

month in and he’s like, “No, I really gotta take care of some stuff.”.

What do you guys do? The camel is there. Just use the camel.

And so the guy’s like, “Okay.” So he

goes and he gets like a step ladder and.

he gets out behind and he comes back the

next day and he’s like, “Really relaxed.”

And he’s like, “You know what, that’s not the sex with a camel. It was a

really good idea.”

And they’re all like spit their coffee. I’m like, “What?”

And he’s even telling me to have sex with a camel for like a month. He goes,

“No, no, we ride the camel into town.”.

The minute you start telling that one, I always say, “I’ve heard that one.”

Yeah, I think everyone’s like, “Those are two very old jokes.”

I’ve never heard the kissing the sheep one.

No, no. I just like the idea of someone thinking like, “Well, you gotta kiss

the sheep.”

I like it. It’s almost like a little romantic, which I quite enjoy.

I like absurd ones as well. Actually, I just think of some more. There’s two

frying eggs and a frying pan.

One looks at the other and says, “Hot in here.” And the other one goes, “Ugh

, talking egg.”.

That’s pretty good.

[Music].

Geisha Remuneration

Let me introduce my very exciting new project Montana El Diablo, learn how to say words with me and get a little story time at the end. Awesome.

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Get it together

Just, it’s a whole lot. The story of me getting #corona and then traveling to Canada and back to #japan

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Bikini Sports Dick

An analysis of the lyrics to Bikini Sports Dick and a post on Japanese TV

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Here’s the video

https://vimeo.com/411825956