The Don of Osaka Comedians, Kausu Nakata, spoke about the “Hitoshi Matsumoto problem.

He said, “I came into the world as an idol comic, and how many girls supported me. My partner was also a playboy, but he never touched the audience. That was my teacher’s teaching. Matsumoto was out. If he really laid his hands on a customer, an amateur…”

This is the complaint of Hitoshi Matsumoto, 60, who is in the middle of a sex-assault scandal. He is Kausu Nakata, 74, who once served as a special advisor to Yoshimoto Kogyo and was also known as “Yoshimoto’s fixer. He debuted in 1967 as a duo with his partner Nakata Buttons (75), and has been involved in manzai for 57 years at Yoshimoto, becoming president of the Kamigata Manzai Association in 2002. He became president of the Kamigata Manzai Association in 2002, and at times “put his body on the line to protect Yoshimoto,” he opened up to this magazine about the problems between the company and Matsumoto, which have caused a series of uproar.

If he had a sense of respect for the customers, he would not be in such a mood. If Matsumoto had a mentor, I think he would have been excommunicated before the company took action. If you are a comedian, it is important to care for others. He gets into trouble with an amateur girl. This already sucks.”

Kaus says that his fans are only customers, and that it is outrageous to touch them. When he was just starting out, when the seats were filled with older men and women, he would talk to young women around the theater and “show them his material” to get their reactions, in pursuit of a style of comedy that would be popular with young women. Later, when he made his breakthrough wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a style that was revolutionary at the time, he was chased around by female fans, but he says that this did not change his thinking.

I was being chased by girls all over the place, and even when I went home, girls would come up to me. I’m sorry to say this, but if I was in the mood for it, I was in a feeding frenzy. But I didn’t do anything. I was being nurtured by those girls.

Despite Kaus’s philosophy, “fan-eating” by comedians has become a common occurrence. Kaus raises his eyebrows at this trend as well.

He says, “There are no masters who disapprove of this kind of thing anymore. I thought, ‘That’s not right,’ so 14 or 15 years ago I started going to NSC as a special instructor. There, I told him, ‘You have to take good care of your customers. Especially comedians who are disliked by girls will never sell. Try going to the Yoshimoto Manzai Theater in Osaka. You should go to the “Yoshimoto Manzai Theater” in Osaka, and you will see that all the customers are young women.

That’s why I tell the young comedians, “The fans are pseudo-lovers. The fan girls are having a pseudo-love affair with you. You can’t betray them. A comedian who doesn’t have that kind of awareness is not a professional, but an amateur. They gather girls as attendants and put their hands on them. Did that really happen?　I didn’t even know the word “attendants. I had no idea that Matsumoto and the others were having girls prepared for them.

Kaus kicked out the culture of attendants that had developed in Matsumoto’s neighborhood. The focus of his tongue shifted to Hiroshi Osaki, the former chairman of Yoshimoto Kogyo, who was the most powerful man in Yoshimoto Kogyo under Matsumoto’s leadership.

In the April 19 issue of “FRIDAY,” on sale April 4, we report in detail on the shocking comments Kaus made to former Chairman Hiroshi Osaki, the backstory behind the black market issue, and the truth behind the “Yoshimoto seclusion racket. The paid version of “FRIDAY GOLD” also published photos of Kaus in response to the interview.

For more details and multiple photos, click here↓.