＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
<2023/6/2 postscript> Mr. Ryutaro Kamioka, who left us his famous words about comedians, has passed away.
Mr. Ryutaro Kamioka, whose sharp tongue (a refreshing tongue that hit the nail on the head) was one of my favorites, has passed away at the age of 81. I pray for his soul rest in peace.
Recent media reports on TV and weekly magazines such as “criticism of Yoshimoto Kogyo’s black market” and “apology conferences” seem to indicate that Japan has become an overly “intolerant” society.
The seemingly excessive criticism, bashing, and other attacks are repeated, and seem to be further spread by the flames of social networking sites and the slapping of people in the face.
１．criticism of black market business
The revelation that comedians from Yoshimoto Kogyo, including Hiroyuki Miyasako and Ryo Tamura of London Boots, had been performing at parties and other events for “antisocial forces” such as bank transfer scam groups and receiving compensation through “direct management business” not conducted through Yoshimoto Kogyo (although some of them had other offices) has been the subject of intense critical coverage.
It all started with a report in Kodansha’s weekly photo magazine “Friday. I believe that this article was composed of “antisocial forces” or someone related to them who was present at the “scene of the black market” and brought the photos to Friday, which in turn bought them.
If “Friday” had rejected this photo purchase outright in its “compliance” belief of not having relations with “anti-social forces,” this article would not have been born.
I believe that “Friday” must have increased its sales with this article and is trying to further increase its circulation with “follow-up” articles such as the second and third installments.
In that sense, we could say that “Friday” is also complicit with “anti-social forces” to make money.
２．Apology Conferences
Famous celebrities often hold apology conferences for their sons’ scandals, adulterous affairs, drug cases, hit-and-run incidents, and so on.
Among these, the apology press conferences for “son’s misconduct” are particularly incomprehensible.
It is hard to understand why a father or mother celebrity should hold a press conference to apologize for the misconduct of her grown adult son. Who is this “apology conference for, by whom, and for what?”
This is also like a “people’s trial” or “kangaroo court” or “lynching. In the past, within the Communist Party and revolutionary organizations, there were “forced self-criticisms in public” against counterrevolutionary elements (“summaries” in which they were collectively denounced ), which is similar to this.
However, I have a feeling that the “apology conferences” that are often held in Japan are for the benefit of the media, such as to boost sales of weekly magazines and increase viewership ratings for TV stations.
３．What the media should be like
In the past, “monster parents” (parents who make self-centered and unreasonable demands on schools and teachers), “young people who lose their temper,” “old people who lose their temper (old people who get angry easily),” “nervous residents who protest” about a noisy nearby kindergarten, and “malicious claimers ( Monster claimers” who demand to get down on their knees if a store does not respond properly to their requests became topics of conversation.
Recently, however, there has been a noticeable increase in media coverage of incidents, as well as criticism and attacks on social networking sites triggered by media coverage.
It is my opinion that media outlets such as weekly magazines, TV stations, and newspapers need to stop here and fundamentally rethink their “tabloid” and “gossipy newspaper” style of reporting.
In other words, I think that the mass media needs to reconsider the selection of what they should convey and how they should convey it.
From time to time, there are interviews on TV with former “anti-social forces” figures.
Even if indirectly through an “intermediary,” the media comes into contact with the former antisocial forces who are the subject of the interview.
This is dangerous because one wrong move could lead to “associating with antisocial forces.
As a side note, the losers from the black market problem are the performers who have been operating under the radar and Yoshimoto Kogyo. On the other hand, those who will benefit will be entertainment agencies other than Yoshimoto Kogyo and the second- and third-tier young comedians who are seeking to fill the vacant slots left by the black market performers. And the “anti-social forces” who provided the information will now have a “source of funds” in their pocket.
And the “comedians who have been operating in the dark but have not been reported on until now” must be shivering with fear now.
４．Entertainment Office Issues
Finally, there is one more thing that concerns me. That is the question of whether Yoshimoto Kogyo, which has as many as 6,000 comedians, thought that all of them could make a living only by working through the company.
Even in the “salaryman society,” the lifetime employment system is on the verge of collapse (or perhaps has already collapsed?). The ban on side jobs is said to be lifted.
Unlike salaried workers, comedians entered this path because they love it, and even if they cannot eat at their main job, they “work part-time to make ends meet,” which is similar to actors, and cannot be discussed in the same way as salaried workers.
However, shouldn’t entertainment agencies take this into consideration as well? Yoshimoto Kogyo is the largest entertainment agency in Japan, and while it receives a large amount of work, the gap in pay between some popular comedians and other unsuccessful comedians seems to be much larger than that of other agencies.
Therefore, unsuccessful comedians are probably forced into a situation where they have to engage in “black market sales” (direct sales without going through a company). They, too, will not accept work from people who are clearly “antisocial forces,” and in that sense, I think there is much to be pitied.
Rather, I think the issues remain in “how to distribute work” and “correcting the disparity in pay” on the part of entertainment agencies.
５．Connection between entertainers and entertainment and yakuza
The connection between entertainment and yakuza has long been known, not to mention the example of Hibari Misora and Kazuo Taoka of the Yamaguchigumi.
Ryutaro Kamioka (1942-2023), who belonged to Yoshimoto Kogyo and dominated the world with his “cartoon trio” with Nok Yokoyama and Hook Aoshiba, and retired from show business easily in 2000 at the age of 58, once spoke frankly about the “relationship between comedians and antisocial forces” on “Tsurube Kamioka Papepo TV” on Nippon TV .
A comedian is a dropout. They are outcasts and outlaws. They are like gangsters, so to speak. They say that there should be no collusion, but they must not lie.
Because we have the same roots, we are the same type of people rather than being collusion with each other.
We want to live as comfortably as possible. I don’t want to do the same kind of hard work that salarymen do. And yet, I want to be treated well by everyone. I want to get lots of money.
Most people who think like this become comedians and yakuza.
