<figure id="attachment_457256" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-457256" style="width: 700px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="610f1114"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/30d03c387d921b8138e264a756b90f27.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-457256" class="wp-caption-text">Nineteen former comedians share their thoughts on &#8220;going out of business&#8221; in this document.</figcaption></figure>
<h3><span class="strongInContent"> Less than 0.01% of people can become a major performer.</span></h3>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When I was a student, the Shinsaibashisuji 2-chome Theater was very popular. There were a lot of comedians in their third or fourth year of their careers appearing on TV, and people who were not much older than me were doing their work freely and enthusiastically, as if it were an extension of after-school hours at school, and the girls were cheering them on. I thought, &#8220;What a glamorous and fun world &#8230;&#8230;,&#8221; and became a comedian. But there are only a handful of comedians who are able to get into the limelight like that.</span></p>
<p> says Fujii Page, 53, a member of the Osaka NSC, Yoshimoto&#8217;s training school. He was a member of the comedy duo Tobiishi Renkyu, which was active in such programs as &#8220;Bakusho On Air Battle&#8221; (NHK, 1999-2009). His classmates at the training school numbered about 300. There were about 300 students at the training school, including those from the &#8220;Tsugichochocho,&#8221; &#8220;Yaseibakudan,&#8221; &#8220;Black Mayonnaise,&#8221; Tokui Yoshimi (&#8220;Tutorial&#8221;), Chance Oshiro, and others. The <span class="strongInContent">number</span> of <span class="strongInContent">those still remaining is a little more than 10, but that is still a large number,&#8221;</span> said Fujii, who has no comment on the number.</p>
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<p> Today, many comedians appear on television in a variety of forms, including variety shows and information programs. However, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;probably less than 0.01% of them are</span> able to become major enough to have their names reach people of all ages and genders throughout Japan, including those who perform on stage, <span class="strongInContent">&#8221; he said.</span> In fact, <span class="strongInContent">even those who can make a living from the fees they earn from comedy alone are not even 0.1% of the population. &#8230;&#8230;</span></p>
<p> Mr. Fujii continues to work as a duo and also distributes videos on his own YouTube channel, &#8220;Paige-chan Channel. One of his popular projects, &#8220;Let&#8217;s talk to comedians who quit,&#8221; is, as the title suggests, an interview with former comedians about how they came to quit and their thoughts at the time.</p>
<p> The featured comedians include Yukiko Nonomura, active as a writer and commentator; Yosuke Matsuo, formerly of &#8220;Zabungle&#8221; who has now moved to Okinawa; Mambo Yashiro, formerly of &#8220;Karika&#8221; who is active as a scriptwriter and director; and Shinichiro Ozawa, formerly of &#8220;Pistachio&#8221; who is now involved in child development support work. The stories of 19 people were excerpted from a total of more than 60, and additional interviews, additions, and revisions were made to compile the book, &#8220;Gejin Hogyo: Voyage and Regrets of Those Who Could Not Become Downtown&#8221; (Tetsujinsha).</p>
<p> It is a world where it is common for most of those who become comedians to quit and leave without fulfilling their dreams. However, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;some of them were called geniuses by their peers, and some of them were so hilarious that the ceiling of the theater seemed to be falling down.</span></p>
<p> What was it that made him decide to talk to these former comedians? One of them was a former comedian.</p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The &quot;certain comedian&quot; who became the trigger."></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">Languages &#8220;The Moment the Seesaw Tipped.</span></h3>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> This is &#8220;Folk Dance DE Narikozaka. They had already disbanded by the time I started working in Tokyo, and Keitaro Okeda, the bokeh, had quit his job as a comedian. I had never met them, but everyone who knew them both said that Okeda was a genius. (If that was the case, why did you quit?) (If that was the case, why did you quit?) I was always wondering in a corner of my mind.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> His partner Nagisa Murata became a pin-up after the breakup of the duo and later formed a duo called &#8220;Nose Engine,&#8221; which reached the semifinals of the &#8220;M-1 Grand Prix&#8221; and was starting to show some results. But in 2006, just as they were about to make it to the finals, he suddenly passed away due to illness. Okeda-san also passed away a few years ago due to illness. In the end, I never got to hear what I wanted to hear.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> In the meantime, I was getting older and older with no results in the comedy world, and the comedians I was close to were quitting one by one. I had just started a YouTube channel and was having trouble growing it, so one of my motivations was to try it out as a project within that channel.</span></p>
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<p> Fujii says that he actually interviewed former comedians he was close to and uploaded the interviews to his YouTube channel. Although he does not appear in this book, the first person he interviewed was Professor Ohawa (Takashi Ohawa), a former pin comedian turned writer who once made it to the finals of &#8220;R-1 Guranpuri,&#8221; and the second was &#8220;Elephant John,&#8221; a duo that also made it to the final of &#8220;THE MANZAI&#8221; (Fuji TV) when it was a manzai contest. The second was Tenpei Morieda of the duo Elephant John, which had reached the finals of &#8220;THE MANZAI&#8221; (Fuji Television) when it was a manzai contest.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> When I actually listened to what he had to say, I thought, &#8220;This is interesting &#8230;&#8230;. Professor Ohawa is a pin comedian, so the line between continuing or not continuing as a comedian is a decision he has to make on his own. He is a married man, so of course there were considerations for his wife. On the other hand, Morieda of Elephant John was a duo, so he also had feelings for his partner. If I quit, it would mean that my partner&#8217;s work would also become zero. Each of us had our own worries and decisions to make.</span></p>
<p> When Fujii first entered the world of comedy, there was a tendency to <span class="strongInContent">say, &#8220;If you don&#8217;t sell by the time you are 30, you should quit</span>. The age limit must have made the decision to quit even more difficult.</p>
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<p><span class="strongInContent"> I think the desire to continue working as a comedian and the reality of not knowing what the future holds are like a seesaw. At a certain moment, the seesaw tilts to &#8216;going out of business.&#8217;&#8230;&#8230; It was not easy to hear such a moment expressed in words from his own mouth.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Both Professor Ohawa and Elephant John were there to see the last live performance and to the launch afterwards. Naturally, I asked them why they were quitting. But they were like, &#8220;Well, well, well&#8230; &#8230;&#8230; The core of the story was muddled. I&#8217;m sure there were things that were hard to talk about there. But as time went by and I had a chance to talk to him again, he digested his thoughts and feelings at that time and told me in great detail. It was very interesting.</span></p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Moments that felt better than sex."></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">Commitment to &#8220;being a comedian</span></h3>
<p> In &#8220;Geinin Gyobangyo&#8221;, the 19 different struggles and anguish that led up to their closing of their businesses, such as the conflict between &#8220;age and income&#8221; and &#8220;living&#8221;, the relationship with their partners, and the difficulty of making material, as well as what each of them considers to be a &#8220;comedian&#8221;, are depicted. &#8230;&#8230; depicts the struggles and hardships of each of them, as well as what each of them thinks a &#8220;comedian&#8221; is.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The film depicts the 19 different struggles and hardships that led to his closing down the business, as well as what each comedian thinks of being a &#8220;comedian. It&#8217;s a &#8220;narcotic&#8221; as they say. Kuri, a former member of &#8220;Armstrong,&#8221; says, &#8220;The feeling of laughter reaching us with a &#8216;bang! is better than sex. Well, it depends on the person (laughs), but there is no doubt that it is the best feeling. Once you know that, it is not easy to quit. And in order to experience it, you have to keep going on stage as a comedian.</span></p>
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<p> On the other hand, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;Several former comedians have told me that once they dropped the title of comedian, it became a lot easier,&#8221; he</span> said. It seems that the restriction that &#8220;to be a comedian, you have to be &#8230;&#8230;&#8221; also makes comedians suffer.</p>
<p> When former Pistachio comedian Ozawa says, <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;If you call yourself a comedian, you still have to do stories,&#8221; or</span><span class="strongInContent">&#8220;If you call yourself a comedian, you are disrespectful to comedians because you no longer want to sell as a comedian,&#8221;</span> it seems that he is not only showing respect for the current comedians, but also somewhat guilty of his own actions. I feel that the phrase &#8220;disrespectful to comedians when you&#8217;re a comedian&#8221; not only shows respect for active comedians, but also seems to imply a sense of guilt.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I think it is up to you to decide what you should be and what you should do if you are a comedian.</span><span class="strongInContent"> I am not making a living only as a comedian, but I want to hold on to my title as a comedian. I want to be able to talk with the interesting comedians around me on an equal footing.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> My personal feeling is that when you become a &#8220;former comedian,&#8221; you are no longer so. I don&#8217;t feel that I lose my connection with everyone when I quit being a comedian, but I don&#8217;t feel that I am on equal terms with them. (Oh, I&#8217;ve quit, right? &#8230;&#8230;) I feel like I&#8217;m going to think at any given moment, &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;ve quit. That&#8217;s just me.</span></p>
<p> I wonder if Fujii himself ever thought about quitting his career as a comedian.</p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" &quot;I might have to quit...&quot; he said."></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">Feelings you can recognize only after quitting</span></h3>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> There were times when I thought, &#8220;I might have to quit. &#8230;&#8230;,&#8221; but even so, I never once thought of quitting as a comedian myself. Even if I quit and got another job, I would probably regret it. Well, one of the reasons we have been able to continue as a duo is that my partner Iwami never says, &#8220;Let&#8217;s break up.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> If he quits, we can&#8217;t do comedy. Of course, as long as I am still doing comedy, I would like to work with my peers who are currently successful,&#8221; he says.</span></p>
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<p> When asked what words of former comedians in the book particularly impressed Fujii, he replied, &#8220;Yukiko Nonomura said, <span class="strongInContent">&#8216;I thought I was working hard at the time, but I wasn&#8217;t working hard at all,&#8217;</span> and Kuri said <span class="strongInContent">, &#8216;Even if you want to die trying, it&#8217;s hard to do it.</span> It&#8217; <span class="strongInContent">s really difficult to turn that switch on, isn&#8217;t it?</span> Both of these sentiments can only be realized in hindsight.</p>
<p> When leaving a place that you have placed yourself in for various reasons, you may find yourself thinking <span class="strongInContent">, &#8220;If only I had given it my all&#8230; &#8230;&#8230;&#8221;</span> These moments are not limited to former comedians, but can be found in other jobs as well.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> There are many such stories in this book.&#8221; But it is not a book filled with the complaints and regrets of former comedians. It is a realistic and positive documentary about people who put their lives on the line, challenged big dreams, failed to fulfill them, and then got back on their feet.</span></p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> I included a lot of annotations to make it easy to understand for those who love comedy, but also for those who are not so familiar with it. I hope it reaches as many people as possible.</span></p>
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<figure id="attachment_457257" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-457257" style="width: 3965px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b8816489"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/f478e463023efa8284b3e8799cc576eb.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-457257" class="wp-caption-text"> Fujii says he has never thought about quitting his career as a comedian.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_457258" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-457258" style="width: 1020px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="4e05b992"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/2b102ff55e3f84d7924e905dc45629cf.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-457258" class="wp-caption-text"> This is a document filled with life lessons about the moment when a comedian decides to give up his title, and about his life afterwards.</figcaption></figure>
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<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E8%8A%B8%E4%BA%BA%E5%BB%83%E6%A5%AD-%E3%83%80%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BF%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%81%AB%E3%81%AA%E3%82%8C%E3%81%AA%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E8%80%85%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A1%E3%81%AE%E8%88%AA%E6%B5%B7%E3%81%A8%E5%BE%8C%E6%82%94-%E8%97%A4%E4%BA%95%E3%83%9A%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B8%EF%BC%88%E9%A3%9B%E7%9F%B3%E9%80%A3%E4%BC%91%EF%BC%89/dp/4865373152"> Geinin Hogyo: Voyage and Regrets of Those Who Couldn&#8217;t Become Downtown&#8221; by Fujii Page (Tobiishi Renkyu), published by Tetsujinsha Co.</a></p>
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 When and how did former comedians who gave up after chasing their dreams decide to "quit the business"? We asked Page Fujii, author of "Geinin Hogyo," a book of interviews with 19 former comedians, and a comedian himself who insists on remaining active in the business.

The moment when the seesaw tilts… A document of 19 former comedians talking about “going out of business

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