Meet Lemon Komadori, the Japanese Manzai Duo Who Build Their Routines Out of Small Talk
Lemon Komadori is the manzai duo of Yuki Onodera and Haruna Kajiwara. Here's who they are, what their comedy is like, and which routine to watch first.
Who They Are
Lemon Komadori is a manzai duo made up of Yuki Onodera and Haruna Kajiwara, represented by the Japanese talent agency Twinkle Corporation. Manzai is Japan's classic stand-up double act: two performers, one conversation, and a steady back-and-forth in which one partner says something off-kilter and the other calls it out.
Onodera comes from Shinkamigoto, in Nagasaki Prefecture; Kajiwara is from the city of Ibaraki in Osaka Prefecture. The pair were finalists at THE W 2024, a Japanese competition to crown the No. 1 female comedian.
Their official profiles add a couple of telling details. Onodera, a registered nurse, lists sipping sencha (Japanese green tea) as a hobby and claims a special skill of making anything look delicious while eating. Kajiwara lists cooking as a hobby and names a special skill that is refreshingly low-key: taking walks.
What Their Comedy Is Like
In the routines on our site, Lemon Komadori tends to start from the smallest possible topic: a fortune-teller's reading, a favorite drink, a signature home-cooked dish, a friend asking for a favor, the dentist down the street. The two are usually set up simply as friends chatting, so each piece opens like an ordinary conversation.
Character matters, too. In a couple of pieces, the two lean into an exaggeratedly prim, upper-crust way of speaking, as if fresh out of finishing school — in one, both of them talk that way; in another, only one does. Every routine on our site is manzai, built entirely on the two of them talking.
Where to Start
“Pet-Sitting” is the one we'd hand a newcomer first. Someone about to be away from home asks a friend to look after a pet for a while — a familiar favor, which makes it an easy way to get a feel for the duo's rhythm.
If that one clicks, try “The Dentist,” which opens with news that the neighborhood dental office has closed its doors — and the conversation takes off from there.
Then there's “Fortune-Telling,” in which one of the pair is thrilled after a fortune-teller says marriage is in the cards, and the other is more than ready to weigh in on what that prediction really means.
The Dentist's Office Closed
The dental office closed. The worry about the dentist is getting out of hand.
3:46
The Last Sip of Cola
A polite chat about drinks gets wildly intense over a little leftover flat cola.
3:46
What's Wrong With Stuffed Peppers?
One is proud of those stuffed peppers. The other is alarmingly upset about them.
3:42
A Favor That Feels Way Too Personal
A friend asks a small favor with so much enthusiasm that the other looks alarmed.
3:16
A Wedding in Your Future
A fortune teller predicts marriage. A friend takes that promise much too literally.
3:59
We use AI as part of how we create our articles.
Subtitles on this video: AI translation from the Japanese.