This year was supposed to be a breakout year for Stand-Up Tokyo, an English-language comedy circuit that I helped start here in the city.

It started strong in January, when the cast and crew of the reality show “Terrace House Tokyo 2019-2020” visited. One of the cast members, Kai Kobayashi, had decided to try his hand at stand-up comedy and I was emcee for the evening. For anyone who’s watched the show, you’ll recall he learned that stand-up isn’t as easy as it looks.

I fared better. It turns out that 30 seconds on “Terrace House” equated to more attention than I’ve got from being in three seasons of an NHK World sitcom. The audiences for subsequent Stand-Up Tokyo events shot up, I was interviewed by a newspaper in Singapore and, hey, I was on Netflix — that cameo wound up giving me the biggest exposure of my career.