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I don’t know if this is the so-called “manzai” comedy I’ve heard about, but when consuming Japanese media I often see a type of joke where someone says or does something stupid or outrageous and another person responds by saying “don’t just say/do that stupid or outrageous thing!”
I know manzai involves a straight man and a fool, but is the humor really this… simple? It feels really low effort and pointless. If all it takes to make a joke is for me to say something random and crazy like “I ate a bowl of spiders for breakfast” and for someone else to respond “don’t just eat a bowl of spiders!” or “don’t just casually admit to eating a bowl of spiders!”
Is this really all it is? I’ve never watched any Japanese comedy routines before so I expect that the jokes get a bit more sophisticated than this. Is this kind of joke actually funny? Is it seen as low effort in Japan? Am I missing something here?
Jokes require certain prompting and are generally formulaic. Your own cultures' formulas will be invisible to you and other cultures' will seem over the top.
Lots of comedy has a 'foil.' Jim on the office will regularly stare into the camera to let us know someone is doing something funny.
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