The reputation of Matsumoto Hitoshi and Shimada Shinsuke that changed his life, words given to him by Beat Takeshi… Kuro-chan talks about his unexpected life as a comedian.

Yasuda Dai is “Japan’s best surprise comedian” who has survived being left on a deserted island, having his home monitored 24 hours a day by camera, and being honey-trapped. …… Kuro-chan of “Circus” tells the story behind the scenes in the series “Kuro-chan mo tsurazu yo! The first four episodes of the series were broadcasted on the “Mizu-Dow” network.

In the fourth installment, Kuro-chan tells us the inside story of the industry, including the backstage of “Mizudow” and the power structure of surprise comedians. In the fifth installment, Kuro-chan takes a different turn and looks back on his life as a comedian, which is surprisingly little known. Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of the formation of Yasuda Grand Circus. Kuro-chan says that he initially wanted to be an idol and not a comedian, but what kind of career has he had? ……

Gentleman who saved me from the bottom of the pit Mr. Matsumoto

Hello~!　Wow, wow, wow. This is Kuro-chan, who has been seriously trying to lose weight recently!　Well, this time I think I’ll write on the serious topic of “My Steps in the Entertainment World”. I’m going to write about a senior whom I admire and have never talked about before, so I hope you’ll read it to the end!

I have been doing this job for more than 20 years now, but the most memorable event for me was the ABC Comic and Rakugo Newcomer Competition (now the ABC Comedy Grand Prix). That was a really big turning point for me. We knew that our material was not good enough to win the grand prize, so we focused on the “judges’ special award. From then on, we practiced until morning and took the first train home to …….

As a result, in 2004, three years after the band was formed, we really won the Special Jury Prize. I was extremely happy at that moment. We got 100,000 yen as prize money. It may not seem like that much now, but for us at the time, it was an incredible amount of money. The three of us divided the money into 33,333 yen each. When I tried to give one yen more to the leader, he looked at me and said, “My story is one yen or ……” (laugh).

I had no choice but to give him 1,000 yen more, but when I asked him about it later, he complained about it as well. So I wished I hadn’t given him a single yen. Well, but somehow it was my youth, and I think it was the first time I “got serious” about something.

But even though I won the award, it didn’t sell at all. Some of the staff members said, “Yasuda’s material is boring. I think the turning point for me came when I participated in a program called “Matsushin” (Nippon Television), which was run by Shinsuke-san (Shimada, 69) and Matsumoto-san (Hitoshi, 61).

When I did my material in front of the two bigwigs, I was surprised that they thought it was funny. From that point on, my reputation changed dramatically. People who used to say, “It’s not funny at all,” now said in the same breath, “It’s very funny. I was really scared of the flip-flops in the entertainment world.

Since then, I’ve had a lot of work, including TV and sales work,” he said. But even though your schedule was full, your monthly income was only 80,000 yen. I complained to the office that this was indeed ridiculous, and the following month my income was increased by about five times (laughs). It really is a strange world.

About two years later, before I turned 30, my monthly income exceeded 1 million yen. But I still had no money at all. That was because I was spending all of my salary and money sent from my parents on the cabaret club. It was the culture of comedians to “never have money over the night. I spent all my money the moment it came in, so I didn’t have enough to last until payday. But now I am saving my money, so I miss it now.

I have never said this in the media, but the comedian I admired the most was Beat Takeshi (78). I never used to watch much comedy, but I used to laugh at his shows. I was invited to the launch of Takeshi’s show after I appeared on it, which I adored. And then…,

You have crushed the dreams of many comedians, so you have to work harder to make up for it.

You are crushing the dreams of many comedians, so you have to work harder for that. While we were appearing on TV, there were certainly comedians who were not able to perform or who were not able to perform their material. I felt as if I was confronted with the reality that our work was based on their dreams. It really hit home.

Surprising Friendship with MC Comedians

I don’t often hang out with comedians, but recently I had a good time drinking with Daigo-san (45) of “Chidori. Daigo remembers vividly the time when Chidori won the ABC Manzai Competition and we won the judges’ special award. I was really happy when Daigo told us that we were comrades-in-arms who fought together on the same stage more than 10 years later. As a comedian, nothing could make me happier. The atmosphere there was very heated, and we talked about how deeply moving it was to be able to drink together like this now, since we had known each other for so long.

Then, Hiccorohee (35) suddenly came up to me and said, “Daigo, are you all right? I asked him why and he said, “Daigo-san, are you all right? I asked him why, and he told me that Daigo had informed Hiccorohee that he honestly couldn’t take any more drinking alone with Kuro. I was like, “What’s going on? So this time, I’d like to have a relaxing drink with just the two of us, without any interruptions!

Thanks again for reading to the end!　Look forward to the next installment!