Meet Baioni, the Japanese Comedy Duo Who Find the Funny in Everyday Situations
Get to know Baioni, a comedy duo from Japan's Production Jinrikisha who perform both manzai and sketch comedy — plus which of their pieces to watch first.
Who Are Baioni?
Baioni is a Japanese comedy duo made up of Kuga and Matsumoto, represented by the talent agency Production Jinrikisha. The pair works in two formats. One is manzai, the Japanese double act in which two comedians trade lines in rapid conversation. The other is konto: short scripted sketches with characters and a setting.
Tokyo native Kuga lists sculpture, illustration and painting as specialties and still subscribes to Weekly Shonen Jump, the long-running weekly manga magazine. Matsumoto hails from Kagoshima in southwestern Japan, names clinical psychology as a specialty and counts watching shogi, the Japanese take on chess, as a hobby.
What Their Comedy Looks Like
Across the pieces available on our site, our editors see Baioni gravitating toward ordinary situations: a stock conversation starter between friends, the rules of a party game, ordering at a Chinese restaurant, a vacation that hits a snag, a parent called in to school.
Their manzai routines tend to open with one of them setting up something familiar, like a question, a set of game rules or a complaint about restaurant customers, and handing it to the other. The sketches drop the duo into specific characters and places, from a souvenir shop overseas to a bar where an actor is drinking alone.
Where to Start
"The Go-To Question" (manzai): One of them tosses out the old icebreaker: if you could bring just one thing to a desert island, what would it be?
"Werewolf" (manzai): One of them, hooked on Werewolf (the social deduction game many Americans know as Mafia, where players talk their way toward unmasking the wolves hidden among the villagers), explains the rules to a partner who has never played.
"Lost My Wallet Abroad" (sketch): A Japanese tourist who has lost a wallet on a trip abroad goes back to the last souvenir shop they stopped at to explain the situation to the clerk.
Our pick for a first watch is "The Go-To Question": it starts from a question most people have heard at some point, which makes it an easy way into the duo's manzai. From there, "Lost My Wallet Abroad" shows what they do with a sketch.
Ordering Shouldn't Be This Hard
A server treats simple questions about portions and spice as invitations to argue.
5:35
In Trouble Over a Drawing
A dad gets called in to school after his son's drawing of a classmate makes her cry.
5:17
The Desert Island Question
A desert island icebreaker stalls as the person being asked picks the whole idea apart.
2:41
A Photo for Sale at the Bar
An actor's quiet drink gets hijacked by a stranger's pushy pitch for a photo.
3:44
Before the Game Even Starts
An eager fan explains a party game. The listener keeps arguing with the rules.
4:31
We use AI as part of how we create our articles.
Subtitles on this video: AI translation from the Japanese.