A man in a suit sits onstage at a Roppongi theater in May and fires a fart-fueled dart at a balloon. Later, another comedian flips through oversize image boards to tell an increasingly absurd narrative about feeding ever-larger pies to an old lady. The audience responds with bewilderment, laughter and applause. This is Yoshimoto Comedy Night Owarai, an English-language comedy show staged every Monday by Yoshimoto Kogyo, the powerhouse talent agency best known for its comedians. The Osaka-based company also stages a similar event called Nandeyanen every Friday at Yoshimoto…
Posts published in “Entertaintment”
SHANGHAI (Kyodo) — Japanese Lolita fashion, with its lace-trimmed dresses, ruffled collars and voluminous skirts inspired by Western dolls, is winning over a growing number of young women in China, fueling demand for Japanese brands and helping turn a niche subculture into a growing consumer market. The style, which emerged in the 1990s in Tokyo’s Harajuku, a trendsetting shopping district and center of youth culture, has become one of the defining symbols of Japan’s “kawaii,” or cute, culture. In China, its popularity has spread through Japanese anime and films, attracting…