Shinichi, a comedian who is seeing you off: “I want to do something about this black image.”

There is an image of a celebrity that television is constantly seeking. It is not necessarily a hero who is liked by everyone, but a character who is teased these days. ……

Recently, we often hear the phrase, ‘A threat to Kuro-chan has emerged.

Shinichi (37), a comedian who won the “R-1 Grand Prix” in March this year, says with a sad smile. He won the competition by defeating Zazy with his black “singing story.

For some reason, his fame has skyrocketed here. However, it is not as a popular figure, but as a “deceived character.

Someone posted on the Internet that he was compared to a soccer formation. It was compared to a soccer formation, with Ogata in the top position, Kuro as the top three center forwards, Nadal on the right, and myself on the left. It was like I was the Japanese representative of the “cheated group. …… (laughs).

The reason for this was a surprise program called “The King of Backbiting” on the variety show “Wednesday’s Downtown” (TBS). In this project, a trickster gives unreasonable sermons to junior comedians at a banquet to provoke them to speak ill of him.

The senior comedian Nagano, from the same office, showered Shinichi with sermons, and then left the room. At the banquet after Nagano’s departure, Shinichi hurled a series of abusive epithets at Nagano, eventually uttering the words, “He is really an old man. After the broadcast, a series of comments criticizing Shinichi poured out on social networking sites, causing a huge firestorm.

There were a lot of people who said, ‘That was a fake,’ but it was definitely not a fake. The staff of that program is a professional group of liars. There was not the slightest hint that it might have been a surprise. The place was a deserted tavern near a port in Chiba, not the kind of place you would expect a surprise to take place.

Later, in the same episode of “Mizudow,” he also revealed a surprise in which his trademark “R-1” trophy was destroyed (actually, it was a fake). In “Shukan Bunshun,” he was reported on a drive date with a fan girl, and later, when directly confronted by a reporter, he confessed, “A total of ……7!

I got written up as having a ‘seven-way relationship,’ but it’s just that I get along with the fan girls in general.”

In addition to being good-looking, he has a big voice and speaks in a Kansai dialect.

His goal is to be a beloved character like Miyazono (“ANZEN Manzai”). Even when he sings or does black comedy material, he is a very nice guy and a very good human being, and that gap between the two makes him likable. But now, when I open the lid, I find that he is really a black guy. I was shocked to be ranked third in the ‘Geisha I Hate’ list.

Against this backdrop, he has formed a duo called “Stress” with “R-1” runner-up Zazy, and they are now trying their hand at manzai.

He is currently trying his hand at comic monologue. “I was the winner, but for some reason Zazy is more successful than me and appears in commercials. He has a worse personality than me, and he betrays people easily. Why don’t I get commercials?　I want to be in commercials, I want corporate projects. I want to be on quiz shows, animal shows, and I want to be a prime-time commentator. I want to slash celebrities who have done wrong. At the moment, I’m on the receiving end of those slashes (laughs). (Laughs.) I was also told by Nishino (Hajime) of Korotiki that if there was a fuss like this, people would normally tweet about it. With all the commotion, you should have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, but the fact that you still have 20,000 is what makes you so interesting.

In other words, we are interested in what Shinichi is up to, but it would be “lame” to follow him. We look forward to his first challenge this year, “M-1,” to see if he can turn the “headwind” into a tailwind.

From theSeptember16, 2022issue ofFRIDAY