Known for seeking thrills on TV, Daisuke Miyagawa goes for laughs in 'The Stand-In Thief'
Need someone to chase pigs in Thailand? Daisuke Miyagawa's your man. How about punching watermelons in Australia? Miyagawa's your man. The 45-year-old comedian has been sent on numerous overseas adventures as part of the Nippon TV variety show "Sekai no Hate Made Itte Q" (which ...
Yoshimoto Kogyo comedians team up with Fukushima to restore disaster-hit scenic rail line
Fukushima Prefecture has teamed up with major entertainment company Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. as the prefecture reopens a scenic local railway line that had been partially closed due to damage from torrential rain six years ago. Special tours were launched recently that took visitors on the ...
Yoshimoto Kogyo's role in creating a real-life robot with a sense of humor
With big, round, smiling eyes and a shirt and bow tie displayed on the screen on his chest, humanoid robot Pepper is ready to entertain his guests. Music begins to play, and Pepper shows off his moves to the 1960s hit song "The Loco-Motion" ...
Okinawa film fest gives fans an up-close view of the stars
Why go to Okinawa for movies? For anyone familiar with the international festival circuit, especially at its higher, artier end, the Okinawa International Movie Festival may well prompt this question — and a negative answer. "It's not a real film festival!" a fellow foreign ...
Japanese broadcasters eager to grab more Asian viewers
Japanese television networks are scrambling into Asia, seeing it as a new frontier of business opportunities as they struggle with dwindling advertising revenue at home. Fuji Media Holdings. is pushing into the Asian market with its "Asia Versus" program, a competition for amateur musicians. While ...
Yoshimoto seeks laughs and profit beyond Japan
Osaka-based Yoshimoto Kogyo, the giant talent agency that celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, has made an enduring business out of that fleeting phenomenon: laughter.
Play reveals manzai's U.S. roots
Watching the fast-paced, two-person manzai routines that characterize much of Japanese TV comedy these days, it's difficult to imagine that two key influences on that genre's birth were stars of cinema's silent era: Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. It's also difficult to imagine that Yoshimoto ...
Can showbiz really sever yakuza ties?
Last August, comedian and TV emcee Shinsuke Shimada retired from show business following allegations that he'd been palling around with an underworld figure. His withdrawal came on the eve of the implementation of a well-publicized police crackdown on organizations that work with antisocial elements, ...
Yoshimoto Kogyo's New Star Creation: Comedy's a funny business in Japan
Downtown, Ninety-Nine, Cream Stew, Neptune, Bananaman, Penalty, Black Mayonnaise, Tutorial, License, King Kong, Peace, Punk Boo Boo, Slim Club, Oriental Radio . . . What on Earth is all this about? Well, if you are familiar with the daily deluge of delights offered up on Japanese ...
Yoshimoto Kogyo: Entertaining the nation
One would have to be a hermit, literally shut off from all media, to avoid exposure in Japan to the comedians and other entertainers managed by Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., the nation's oldest and arguably most powerful entertainment agency. Besides appearing on the numerous television variety ...
Being listed may be a huge benefit for startups and young companies that want to get their name in the public eye or hope to gather funds from the market. But for talent agency Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. — known as the king of the comedy ...
Entertainment service provider Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. picked Vice President Isao Yoshino as its president Tuesday after Chairman Hiroaki Hayashi died Monday at age 62, company officials said. Its board of directors will meet Wednesday to finalize the appointment, they said. Yoshino, also 62, was destined ...
