<figure id="attachment_244105" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 489px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-244105"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="92079d56"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/05/a3621568eae52c15d828465d30a91820.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-244105" class="wp-caption-text">Hitoshi Matsumoto, who made a bitter complaint to the BPO on his TV program upon the news of Ryubei Ueshima&#8217;s death. Although he threw a stone at the &#8220;comedy world&#8221; that is shrinking&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
On May 15, Hitoshi Matsumoto of &#8220;Downtown&#8221; appeared on &#8220;Wide Nah Show&#8221; (Fuji Television Network). He mourned the sudden death of Ryubei Ueshima of the comedy trio &#8220;Dacho Club.
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 He said, &#8220;We didn&#8217;t have a deep relationship, but we had known each other for a long time. We were about 20 years old. Ryuhei was around 22 or 23, and we had known each other for nearly 40 years. He would come to our shows at important points and liven things up&#8230;. Yes, well, I&#8217;m a little sorry.
I&#8217;m a little sorry,&#8221; he choked up and held back tears.
MC Koji Higashino interrupted the conversation and Matsumoto spoke again, &#8220;I know there are more than one reason.
 I know there is more than one reason, but it has become difficult for us to perform our comedy and the art of the Ostrich Club on TV. If you are told that &#8220;painful laughter&#8221; is not allowed, you can&#8217;t do things like taking a bath in boiling water or making hot oden.
 I don&#8217;t think that such art is harmful at all. I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s the only reason, but I do wonder what the BPO thinks about it.
He also complained to the BPO (Broadcasting Policy and Ethics Organization), which in recent years has been taking issue with &#8220;painful laughter.
Some people on the Internet have said, &#8220;It&#8217;s not right to link it to the BPO when we don&#8217;t know the cause of the problem,&#8221; but Matsumoto is probably aware of this. Matsumoto&#8217;s words were not about whether &#8220;part of the cause was there&#8221; or not, but about his mixed feelings about the fact that such art, which he loved and was loved by Ueshima, is becoming more difficult in this day and age.
Although not widely known, Matsumoto also wrote a recommendation obi for Ueshima&#8217;s autobiography book. It is likely that he could not hide his true feelings in order to mourn for a comedian of his generation.
The BPO&#8217;s statement was not the entire reason, but at the end of last year, the &#8220;Gaki no Tsukasa&#8221; year-end special &#8220;Laugh Out Loud Series&#8221; (NTV) was suspended and a special program of stories was broadcast. The reason was that they could not film on location due to the Corona Disaster.
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 The basic structure of the &#8220;Laughing is forbidden&#8221; series is that if you laugh, you get spanked, and the basic structure of the series is &#8220;there is pain. Especially in the corner where Ueshima-san and the others appeared, everyone puts their bodies on the line to get laughs, so the main laughs are &#8220;painful, hot, and agonizing.
 Even so, their &#8220;reaction art&#8221; was extremely funny, and was one of the highlights of the corner, which showed the charm of being performed by professionals. Matsumoto-san may have felt resentment at being told that he should not do painful laughter, which was a slight to the efforts of Ueshima-san and the other performers.
Matsumoto added
 If there are any comedians who are still struggling, I would like to hear from them, even indirectly. I don&#8217;t know what I can do.
I don&#8217;t know what I can do,&#8221; he said, suggesting that he might be able to offer advice to other comedians.
Speaking of Matsumoto, on the day that Hiroyuki Miyasako and Ryo Tamura held a press conference and revealed that they had been harassed by the president of Yoshimoto during the black market scandal in 2007, he said, &#8220;I think junior comedians are worried.
 The junior comedians are anxious, aren&#8217;t they? Matsumoto, I&#8217;m moving.
The tweet became a topic of conversation. It is said that he had a meeting with company executives after that.
In 2008, when the Corona epidemic began to spread, Matsumoto offered an interest-free, unsecured loan of 1 million yen to junior comedians whose incomes were declining.
 Last year&#8217;s special program, which replaced &#8220;Laughing at You,&#8221; did not get good viewer ratings and was not very exciting. With the way to deal with Corona gradually becoming clear, many people in the comedy industry are hoping that &#8220;Laugh It Away&#8221; will be revived, even if it means questioning the pros and cons of the traditional method of laughter. I am sure that the fans would be happy to have another funny show. I hope that Matsumoto will take on this challenge, even if it means throwing a stone at the &#8220;comedy world&#8221; and the TV world as a whole.
Matsumoto&#8217;s true meaning behind his &#8220;BPO statement&#8221; may be revealed once again by his own mouth. How will society perceive his own words of condolence in the future?

 Yasuko Sakaguchi

 On the occasion of the news of Ryubei Ueshima's death, Hitoshi Matsumoto made a bitter comment to the BPO on "Wide Nah Show," where he serves as MC. He was a stirring comment on the "comedy world" that is shrinking due to compliance issues, but...

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Where is the ripple effect caused by his “bitter complaint to the BPO” at the memorial service for Ryubei Ueshima?

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