<figure id="attachment_208965" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-208965" style="width: 2711px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="093f2ae0"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2021/10/NKMR1317.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-208965" class="wp-caption-text">Crystal Noda (34, left) of Magical Lovely, who is aiming to win the triple crown of comedy at this year&#8217;s &#8220;King of Contrast&#8221; following &#8220;M-1&#8221; and &#8220;R-1,&#8221; also belongs to Tokyo Yoshimoto.</figcaption></figure>
 On October 2, &#8220;King of Contrast 2021&#8221; (TBS) aired to decide the number one comedian, which gave &#8220;Kamai-tachi&#8221; and &#8220;Baikingu&#8221; their breakthrough.
 &#8220;Eight of the ten finalists, including Kaerutei who moved from Osaka, belong to Tokyo Yoshimoto (Yoshimoto Kogyo&#8217;s Tokyo headquarters). It has always been said that Osaka Yoshimoto (Yoshimoto Kogyo&#8217;s Osaka headquarters) is strong in manzai and Tokyo Yoshimoto is strong in comedy, but even so, there are usually three or four groups. This year, the number of groups is outstandingly large,&#8221; said a comedy writer.
 A senior executive of an entertainment company points out that the Corona disaster is behind the rapid progress of the Tokyo Yoshimoto group.
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 &#8220;One of Yoshimoto&#8217;s strengths is that it has several theaters of its own. When it comes to holding live performances at its own theaters, the risk of canceling performances is high in the event of the Corona disaster. We have to be cautious because the loss is so great that we have to pay cancellation fees. On the other hand, if it&#8217;s your own theater, it&#8217;s easy to cancel the show, so you can continue the show.
 Tokyo Yoshimoto&#8217;s theaters have set up an environment for internet distribution with this Corona disaster, and they can secure sales even with no audience. That&#8217;s why they were able to resume their regular daily performances. Tokyo Yoshimoto comedians have far more opportunities to perform their material than comedians from other agencies, and their material is far more sophisticated.
 A Yoshimoto official laughed, saying, &#8220;The supremacy of profit has turned out to be a good thing.
 &#8220;While there are four theaters in Osaka, there are eight theaters, including the one in Numazu, Shizuoka, where Tokyo Yoshimoto comedians mainly perform. The Omiya and Numazu theaters are located in the general amusement facility &#8220;Raccoon,&#8221; and the rent seems to be kept lower than the market price because they were lured to the area to persuade the residents to open the facilities.
 The reason why &#8220;Magical Lovely&#8221; and &#8220;Gerardon&#8221;, both from Omiya, and &#8220;Sore Idoitsu&#8221; from Numazu, were able to make it to the finals was because they had a theater as their home.
 The presence of &#8220;New York,&#8221; which was the runner-up last year and made it to the final of the King of Comedy this year, is also significant. That&#8217;s what the broadcast writer said.
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 &#8220;The two have been promoting the appeal of Tokyo Yoshimoto comedians on their YouTube channel. Among them, the documentary video &#8220;The Electric Parade,&#8221; which examines the mysteries of the group formed by members of the 17th term of Tokyo NSC, has recorded 1.68 million views despite its length of about two hours. The &#8220;Air Stairs,&#8221; which appeared as a witness in the video, also made it to the finals.
 The current situation in which Tokyo Yoshimoto comedians are discouraged from moving across prefectures due to reduced production costs and infection prevention measures is also having a positive effect on them.
 The current trend is to use Tokyo-based comedians as much as possible, except for those who are in season, such as in the case of &#8220;Scouting. It&#8217;s hard to hold auditions for story shows, so more and more staff members are using YouTube and social networking sites to discover young talent. Programs like the &#8220;New York&#8221; channel that show the appeal of young people are very useful. &#8220;(Director of a production company)
 The day is coming when Tokyo Yoshimoto comedians will dominate the variety industry!

 Kazuhiko Nakamura

 King of Contrast 2021 will be broadcast on October 2. This year, 8 of the 10 finalists are comedians from Tokyo Yoshimoto. What is the reason for this breakthrough?

The influence of Covid on the success of Yoshimoto’s comedians at King of Conte

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