<figure id="attachment_430366" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430366" style="width: 3078px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="02ad8919"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/07/1531c53c0da74906b7ef70828ab6c304.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-430366" class="wp-caption-text">TKO Neon presented by the management company. The TikTok screen shows the left and right sides of the neon in opposite directions (laughs).</figcaption></figure>
<h2> Only Kinoshita knows the &#8220;most interesting Kimoto&#8221;!</h2>
 In the first part of this interview, the two talked candidly about the twists and turns that led up to their entry into TikTok, as well as the fun and possibilities they discovered once they actually started using it. In the second part of the interview, they share their views on the battles that have become so popular on TikTok.
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 In the second part, the <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/430357">duo discusses their</a> views <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/430357">on TikTok&#8217;s</a> popularity.
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Kinoshita: I don&#8217;t deny that TikTok has the function of a battle, but I think that if you do it all the time, it will become less fun. It becomes a battle for a living.
Kimoto: We are a private agency, so we want to make sales, and we consider the revenue from TikTok to be the ticket price. If we do a one-hour live show, we set the gift based on the idea that the ticket price would be something like this. If we do a three-hour show, we charge the ticket price for three hours.
 During the battles, I also ask the listeners. What do you want to do? What are you going to do? If they say, &#8220;Let&#8217;s not do it,&#8221; I say, &#8220;Okay, okay! I would say, &#8220;Okay, okay! On the other hand, sometimes the response is, &#8221; Let&#8217;s do it, let&#8217;s do it, let&#8217;s do it! Sometimes the response is, &#8220;Let&#8217;s do it!
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Kinoshita: The other day, I happened to be watching Takeshi Ueda&#8217;s (36) TikTok. Then a young man with about 150,000 followers came on there. Ueda-san has about 10,000 followers.
 He was broadcasting at a place where baseball uniforms and clothes were displayed, and the young man said to him, &#8220;Don&#8217;t hang on to past glory, man. He said , &#8220;It may have been good then, but now you should be doing TikTok properly. The younger guy said so much.
 And Mr. Ueda was really pissed off. But the number of contacts was growing rapidly, from 100 to 800. So, a battle ensued!　Mr. Ueda&#8217;s followers got really excited, saying, &#8220;We want to beat this young man,&#8221; &#8220;Let&#8217;s beat him,&#8221; and he won by a huge margin.
 Then the young man said, &#8220;You, read the names of the people who supported you,&#8221; and as he read out the names of everyone, Mr. Ueda began to notice something. Then the young man said , &#8220;You, this is TikTok. This is TikTok.You mean he was trying to piss me off on purpose? Yes. They followed each other, said, &#8220;Let&#8217;s battle again,&#8221; &#8220;Thank you,&#8221; and that was the end of it. The gifts flew so well, the tangent grew and the unity of the fans solidified. Above all, this drama was wonderful.
Kimoto: It feels like watching a little drama, doesn&#8217;t it?
 &#8211;It&#8217;s great for fans to hear their voice reach the celebrity they are guessing. Moreover, you can see the reactions of your guesses in real time. You can talk with them, and they can listen to your opinions.
Kinoshita: In the old days, even if you sent a fan letter, you didn&#8217;t know if Kyoko Koizumi really read it or not. Nowadays, fan letters are delivered properly, and we know whether they were read or not. This is a new platform.
Kimoto: I also think of it as a &#8220;new place,&#8221; and I think I need to soften my old way of thinking a bit. I don&#8217;t usually do gags, but when I am on TikTok, I am sometimes asked to &#8220;do some kind of gag&#8221; in a rude manner. In the past, I would have ignored it, but I think I need to change that, so I reply, &#8220;Gag? 　I reply , &#8220;Okay.
 However, the listeners know the rule of &#8220;reacting in a certain way when a gift comes in,&#8221; so when I am about to do a gag, the gift comes in at the same time. I would say, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to do a gag now, so watch this,&#8221; and they would send me another gift just as I was about to do the gag again. I would say, &#8220;No, I can&#8217;t do the gag! But when I had just finished the gag, they would interrupt me again.
 After doing that for a while, they would say, &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s time to see Kimoto&#8217;s gag,&#8221; and then they would go to &#8230;&#8230;. How could it possibly be funny in that way?　Then, all the listeners commented on it and said, &#8220;Scene.I snapped, &#8220;Well, you guys do it!&#8221; I snapped and said, &#8220;You guys do it!&#8221; &#8230;&#8230; Isn&#8217;t this a lot of fun?
Kinoshita I know that Kimoto is the funniest when he is joking around. But it&#8217;s hard to show that on TV. Because I&#8217;m always in the foreground. People make fun of me.
 However, Kimoto started TikTok first, and I joined after his rules were established, so I feel like I&#8217;m switching between being the goofball and the comedian. It&#8217;s like the two of us are swapping blurts and tsukkomi, and that&#8217;s where the best part of Kimoto comes out. When I interact with others, people are a bit surprised, but they say, &#8220;This is Kimoto&#8217;s &#8220;normal&#8221; way of doing things. And that&#8217;s fresh. It&#8217;s fresh.
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Circulation with Talk Live"></div>
<figure id="attachment_430367" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430367" style="width: 4284px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="92ebf9b7"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/07/8b6496a0416a96a5432a4e4343016d1d.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-430367" class="wp-caption-text">A selfie stick is a must-have.</figcaption></figure>
<h2> I met him because &#8220;a lot happened.</h2>
Kimoto: As soon as we started TikTok Live, we decided to do a real talk show. One of the purposes of starting this was to attract customers, or rather, to mobilize them, and when I announced the live shows on YouTube, many customers came to theaters around Japan. If TikTok is something that everyone recommends, how many people can we mobilize?
 We announced the event to our regular members, or listeners who always came to see the show, and held a talk live at our office and event space. We did a talk live at our office and event space. We were already overflowing. People who had not come to TKO&#8217;s live shows before came because of the TikTok live.
 I had a story that I was trying to tell at the TikTok live show, but the listeners kept interrupting me, so I tried it at the talk show and they laughed. So you could say that live performances and TikTok live performances are in a cycle.
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Kinoshita It&#8217;s true that TikTok is a flow, not just a way of life, but a collection of dots that become a line.
Kimoto: We call the supporters who became our fans during our 47 prefectures tour last year &#8220;seconds,&#8221; and new people will join the seconds. The listeners who gather at Kinoshita&#8217;s place will also come. I think that&#8217;s where I saw the potential, and I feel that TikTok live is closely connected to the actual live performance.
Kinoshita: I think the reason I can say this is because of the things that happened to us. If it had not been for the scandal, how would we both be living today?　Would I be having a good time?　Maybe I&#8217;d be working hard at what&#8217;s in front of me, maybe I&#8217;d be on TV, but I probably wouldn&#8217;t be doing TikTok live.
Kimoto: That&#8217;s right. I don&#8217;t know what I was doing, but I can say with certainty that I am definitely doing something interesting right now. I can say that with confidence. Even so, I am sure that many things will still be said about me. But even those people will come to support us. I want people who have not yet done TikTok Live to know that.
Kinoshita: I get the feeling that everyone is having a good time. There aren&#8217;t as many negative people as I thought there would be.
Kimoto: We are the only duo doing TikTok Live, aren&#8217;t we?　I wonder what people who haven&#8217;t seen a TikTok live performance will say when they read about it on the Internet.
 I would like to say to those people, &#8220;Please try watching it at least once. TKO is struggling to make something happen from here.
Kinoshita TV used to take months to edit and go on the air, but now with YouTube, you can buy your own camera, shoot it like a home video, make your own thumbnails, add your own message, and get it out the same day at the earliest.
 It was amazing!　But with TikTok Live, I don&#8217;t need thumbnails or tickers. TikTok Live is the ultimate media that allows you to speak what you think right now. It&#8217;s like fighting bare-knuckled, naked, and everything is already exposed. You can&#8217;t fake it by using staging or sound effects. I am amazed at the distributors who have been doing this for so long.
Kimoto: That&#8217;s exactly why we absolutely have to create this kind of TikTok live performance by comedians. It would definitely be fun to collaborate with comedians alone. I would like comedians to have this option.
Kinoshita Even so, I think there are still ways to play with TikTok that no one has noticed yet. It can be used in more interesting ways. Fan letters can be sent directly to them. There are angles to be discovered that have never been seen before.
Kimoto: If a razor arrived at my office, I would say, &#8220;Wow!
<figure id="attachment_430368" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430368" style="width: 3827px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="eaa04580"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/07/dc04ac456610aa0ac3f3b850bd5c8425.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-430368" class="wp-caption-text"> From now on, we will perform live in real life and on TikTok.</figcaption></figure>
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