It was a year ago that comedian Yoshio Kojima got his big break, and Japanese TV hasn't been the same since. Kojima is the young man who wears the colorful bikini briefs and nothing else while happily dancing and declaiming in meter: "Sonna no kankei nai (I couldn't care less)." His only punch line is delivered in an agitated growl as he pumps his left arm and leg in unison. The phrase became a hit and was nominated as one of the most influential neologisms of 2007 by the dictionary publisher Jiyu Kokumin-sha.
There is nothing inherently funny in what Kojima says. The gist of his routine is that he's comically inept, the punch line an acknowledgment of his ineptitude, and that in itself is supposed to be funny, not the jokes. Geinin means artist or entertainer, but these days it is mostly applied to comedians, implying that the person has a gei (special skill) that usually comes down to one clever idea. Kojima has said he never expected to last this long in show business based on such a thin comic premise, but TV now thrives on this sort of thing.
Kojima got his break on "Omoshiro-so e Irrasshai (Welcome to the Funny Lodge)," a segment of the long-running variety show "Guruguru Ninety-Nine." The segment offers fledgling comedians a chance to try out routines, and because the participants have only minutes, they have to make a big impression. Jokes are less important than funny costumes, funny faces and funny gestures. Kojima was one of the segment's first performers and an immediate hit. Within days he was circling the globe via YouTube, whose role in the development of this kind of conceptual humor is immeasurable.