<figure id="attachment_430358" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430358" style="width: 3596px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="cd24431e"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/06/700f38b9b754d2fd3330011134f11724.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-430358" class="wp-caption-text">Always carry filming gear. He has completely become a video performer.</figcaption></figure>
<h2> A World of Fear&#8221; with No Editing, No Direction, and No Message</h2>
Kimoto: I had never touched TikTok before. I didn&#8217;t even have an account. I just watched Kinoshita&#8217;s videos once in a while. I had never even watched the videos of the petit-contests he did with the audience on his national tour on TKO&#8217;s official channel.
Kinoshita: When I was at home after the PET bottle scandal, a comedian I knew suggested I start a YouTube channel, and that&#8217;s when I learned about TikTok.
 When I went to Hawaii for &#8220;Ariyoshi&#8217;s Summer Vacation&#8221; (Fuji TV), Nicole Fujita (27) danced to &#8220;Megumi no Hito&#8221; by Razz &amp; Star, and when they said, &#8220;Let&#8217;s film it,&#8221; everyone was filming vertical videos and I said, &#8220;You have to do it horizontally, don&#8217;t you? I remember saying something like, &#8220;You have to do it horizontally.
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 I remember saying something like, &#8220;That&#8217;s a horizontal video, it has to be horizontal.
Kinoshita: After I quit the office due to a scandal, I did a little video work here and there, but I thought Kimoto would never do it. It&#8217;s not that I thought he was not sensitive, but I thought he would not be interested in it.
Kimoto: I wasn&#8217;t interested in social networking itself, and I felt that X and Instagram were just for announcements. I thought, &#8220;This is not good enough. I knew that I would not be able to keep up with the world, but I just couldn&#8217;t get interested in it.
Kinoshita: Kimoto loves TV, and I thought, &#8220;He&#8217;s going to make a living doing TV,&#8221; so I didn&#8217;t think we would do TikTok together.
Kimoto: But, you know, whenever I talk to anyone about the future of TKO, they all say, &#8221; You should do TikTok. All of them, you know?　That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m told by everyone I ask. So I decided to take the first step.
Kinoshita: I did the same thing when I started YouTube, but people would say, &#8220;Don&#8217;t do it as a celebrity,&#8221; or&#8220;You&#8217;ve fallen that far,&#8221; and there was even a possibility that I would lose to an amateur in terms of numbers. The number of viewers and the number of connections are clearly shown in the numbers. I think that&#8217;s why many comedians don&#8217;t enter the market.
 If this were television, I would not have known or thought about how many numbers (viewer ratings) the guy sitting on the dais had. They would have been able to get away with it. Then YouTube came along, and we thought, &#8220;We have to face our own numbers,&#8221; and then TikTok Live came along, with no editing, no direction, no tickers, no sound effects.
Kimoto: It&#8217;s scary to have the numbers come out so clearly. It reveals how good you are. But, to sum it up, it was a lot of fun.
 The fact that it cannot be edited makes it easier for the personality of the person doing it to come out. The listeners will selectively choose their personalities and go to see the show. I discovered that it is good to do things as they are.
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Kinoshita: Now that I think about it, I once did a TikTok live event with Kimoto and myself on a fan club-only app called FUNKEON. It was a live broadcast for 9 hours. We had a lot of fun in that space where only the fans were watching. I read the comments from the fans, and at that moment, I returned them to &#8230;&#8230; and laughed.
Kimoto: FUNKEON&#8217;s live broadcast is similar to TikTok&#8217;s screen.
Kinoshita Television is a one-way street, and so is YouTube. You are right in front of the audience on stage, and you are close to them, but it is also a one-way street. TikTok Live, on the other hand, allows you to respond to listeners&#8217; comments in real time. Your action is the only thing that moves us.
 If you ask me a question, I will answer it, and if you throw me a gift, I will react to it. The way you throw your gift can make listeners laugh. I think of it as being on a &#8220;brand new show.
Kimoto: Even so, I still get negative comments on TikTok. People say things like, &#8221; You&#8217;re so pathetic. But I still say , &#8220;No, it&#8217;s pathetic, but take a look at it. Then you can decide if it&#8217;s interesting or not.&#8221; I would reply, &#8220;No, it&#8217;s pathetic, but please watch it, and then you can decide if it&#8217;s interesting or not.
I said, &#8220;You followed up! I said, &#8220;Good luck! These stories are very interesting. I try to pick up all the offensive comments, but most of them become my friends. People who really don&#8217;t like it don&#8217;t come to see the show.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The duo lined up on the TikTok screen and were very emotional"></div>
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<figure id="attachment_430361" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430361" style="width: 1170px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="4684e846"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/07/90abbda184b36eab5ddfacd5f0384328.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-430361" class="wp-caption-text">Two shots of the duo on TikTok</figcaption></figure>
<h2> What&#8217;s up, Kimoto?</h2>
Kimoto: I&#8217;m obsessed with TikTok, and I&#8217;ve been on it for about six hours at times. In between, I go to see what Kinoshita is doing. I just open the screen and see what he&#8217;s doing. But when I open the page, it says &#8220;Kimoto has joined,&#8221; so I go to the list of thumbnails and watch from the &#8220;top,&#8221; which is &#8230;&#8230;.
Kinoshita You call it &#8220;from the top&#8221;? (laugh)
Kimoto: Once it says &#8220;Kimoto participated,&#8221; I can&#8217;t just end it without taking any action. I&#8217;m here! If I don&#8217;t get involved when the comments are excited, it would be a meaningless action. So, when I don&#8217;t have time, I look at it from the top.
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 &#8211;I remember when you were collaborating with a foreigner who looked like he was from the Middle East.
Kinoshita: That was &#8230;&#8230; (laughs). (Laughs.) I decided to hold a TikTok live performance on that day, and I announced it on FUNKEON, which I mentioned earlier, saying, &#8220;Okay, we&#8217;ll start now. I was a little nervous, talking by myself. I was a little nervous, and I was talking by myself.
 He said, &#8220;Wait a minute. I was still a bit dazed and nervous (&#8230;&#8230;), but I gathered up my courage and approved the request. It was a very emotional moment for me.
 I was thinking to myself, &#8220;In TikTok, a world where the whole picture is still unclear and there are so many different ways of thinking, we are a duo, &#8230;&#8230;,&#8221; when Kimoto left and I received another request for collaboration.
Kimoto: &#8221; Let&#8217;s talk properly,&#8221; Kinoshita said, but before we could talk, he left again, and then another request for collaboration came in, so we were doing something like a fight. Then I said, &#8220;Well, I&#8217;m hanging up now,&#8221; and left the group.
Kinoshita: Then Kimoto applied for collaboration again, and I said, &#8220;Oh my God! I approved it, and then someone I didn&#8217;t know at all who looked like a person from the Middle East sent me an e-mail at &#8230;&#8230; (laughs). I thought, &#8220;Wait a minute, what&#8217;s going on here? Now that I think about it, it was indeed Muhammad?　I think I received a collaboration request from someone with a Middle Eastern name like &#8220;Muhammad?
 The comment section went &#8220;awwww,&#8221; and then Kimoto sent another request for collaboration, so I left and left Kimoto and the foreigner alone. This kind of unimaginable happening happens on TikTok. This is something you don&#8217;t read about in TV or YouTube textbooks.
<figure id="attachment_430362" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430362" style="width: 1170px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="0d13c8ea"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/07/8fc7aad37d77db829ba75a68dc50217b.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-430362" class="wp-caption-text"> A sudden collaboration with a foreigner who seems to be from the Middle East</figcaption></figure>
Kimoto: That was really interesting. It was a world I had never experienced before.
Kinoshita He had a thick beard.
Kimoto: I couldn&#8217;t understand him.
Kinoshita: I asked him, &#8220;Kimoto? I asked him, &#8220;What&#8217;s Kimoto? He said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know me. It was interesting to see the composition of &#8220;Kimoto who doesn&#8217;t know me&#8221; (laughs).
Kimoto: I joined them later, so I thought, &#8220;I wonder if this foreigner is an acquaintance of Kinoshita&#8217;s.&#8221; I wondered if this foreigner was an acquaintance of Kinoshita&#8217;s.
 Then, Kinoshita blurted it out and it was just the two of us. The moment we were alone, the foreigner said, &#8220;Who is that person? I was so shocked. We were all in a mess!　I thought. It was the kind of laughter that only TikTok Live can produce.
<figure id="attachment_430363" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-430363" style="width: 1170px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="8f8b6c7f"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2025/07/79acf44db853f5bf88e4a35a1e92208f.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-430363" class="wp-caption-text"> Two people who couldn&#8217;t contain their laughter</figcaption></figure>
Kinoshita After that, you had a battle with that foreigner (a feature on TikTok that allows distributors to face off against each other).
Kimoto: That&#8217;s right. But I don&#8217;t do battles with foreigners so much these days. The reason is that the regular listeners who always come to my site are very playful. If they win a battle, they get an item that makes them stronger, but they try to beat me by joking around on &#8230;&#8230; (laughs).
 (Laughs.) Dozens of people went to support the other player. I told them to come back here, but they beat me badly. And when the battle was over, he would come back and say, &#8220;I&#8217;m home.I said, &#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you say, &#8216;I&#8217;m home&#8217;? I&#8217;m back! But that&#8217;s interesting, too.
Kinoshita: Some people aim to make money from battles, but money should not come first. We need to take care of our fans and the community. If we don&#8217;t have a solid foundation here, the people we care about will leave us. I don&#8217;t think this &#8220;new program&#8221; is about making money.
Kimoto: The people who are doing TikTok, mainly for the battles, are doing it for the money. I think that&#8217;s a good thing, but we think of the gift as a &#8220;ticket price. We set the price of gifts that can be used in battles as low as possible. If we don&#8217;t do it with that sense, people will say, &#8220;He&#8217;s not doing comedy anymore. I try to find the right balance between the two.
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<a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/430365">The ultimate battle is bare-knuckled and completely naked&#8221; &#8211; Takehiro Kimoto✕Takayuki Kinoshita, TKO</a>
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 No editing or directing is allowed. TikTok live is a place where numbers are used to expose the power of the performers. TKO is challenging the stage of the ultimate gachinko battle as a duo. The two talk about the process, the possibilities they discovered, the challenges they face, and their vision for the future.

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TKO Takehiro Kimoto✕Takayuki Kinoshita “A world line where an old man in his fifties wins the world with TikTok” – The duo hit it out of the park!

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