Japanese Comedy About Work: Sketches From the Loan Desk to the Robot Command Center
Six Japanese comedy pieces set on the job, from a bank loan desk and a record store to a giant-robot command center, with a little context before you press play.
Why the workplace is such fertile ground for Japanese comedy
Workplaces everywhere run on unwritten scripts: who greets whom, who answers the phone and how, who defers to whom. In many Japanese workplaces, those scripts go into fine detail, from the set phrases used on the phone to the way you speak to someone senior. When everyone knows the script, it only takes one person going off it, while the rest of the room still has to get the job done. That tension is exactly where comedy lives, and Japanese comedians return to it again and again, whether the job is at a bank counter or in a command center.
The pieces below come in three formats. Konto is sketch comedy with characters and a setting. Manzai is a two-person stage routine, and duos often slip into acting out a scene mid-routine. A solo act (pin in Japanese) is one performer carrying everything alone. Each entry covers only how the piece begins, so the jokes are still yours to find.
Death Game — Pabun (sketch)
This sketch starts where most death-game stories end. One man has made it all the way through the ordeal, here called Death Village, and now he is demanding the ¥100 million prize.
Watch the winner, who has come to collect.
Where to go next
If one of these hooked you, the performer profiles for Asobi, Pabun, Okaeri Nicholson, Daiki Toyao, and Bunny Pyonkichiro are a good next stop.
Survived the Game. Where's the Money?
A hunched figure shuffles out in full villain mode. The survivor just wants to get paid.
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We use AI as part of how we create our articles.
Subtitles on this video: AI translation from the Japanese.