Funassyi will appear briefly during tonight’s Ippunkan no Fukaii Hanashi (a rough translation is “A minute’s worth of someting worth hearing”) on Nichitele/Nippon TV. It’s during a segment focused on someone else, so Funassyi is probably going to surprise them or something like that. The episode airs at 20:54 or something like that (tune in a bit before 9pm in other words).
The video above is from a previous appearance Funassyi made back in May 2014 on the same show, where it’s revealed that Funassyi never forgets to say “thank you” to his fans, because they are the ones that made it possible for him to have so much success. Funassyi says that he doesn’t sing that well, and he isn’t that good at making people laugh either - but it’s because people support him and cheer for him that he’s been able to have so much success so far. When asked how long he plans to keep going, he says “as long as people keep supporting me”.
The way the show works is that the studio guests vote whether the “something worth hearing” is great of ‘meh’. While the majority think Funassyi’s “something worth hearing” is great, two of the panelists - comedian Daisuke Muramoto and actor/director/comedian Gekidan Hitori vote ‘meh’. Muramoto says it’s because when he appeared with Funassyi on a show once, his jokes went nowhere while people loved what Funassyi did, so he had a bad “underarm sweat bushaa!” moment. Gekidan Hitori said that he’s also from Funabashi, but when he had an event at Lalaport Tokyo Bay where Funassyi consistently draws huge crowds, the place was empty! Then the host, comedian Koji Imada, muses that if any of them (meaning comedians) held and event at Lalaport, there’s no way they can draw 10,000 people; and gets pissed and changes his vote. In other words, they’re envious of The Pear.
They are kidding of course, but there’s probably a grain of truth in their envious comments. Funassyi can draw much bigger crowds than most straight-up entertainers (with the exception of some idol groups or a very “in” acts) and he’s been doing it consistently for 3 plus years now. In addition. most entertainers in Japan are not independent contractors like entertainers in the U.S. for example - they are employees of management agencies. They draw a salary that is scaled according to their years of employment as much as it is to their success. For instance, when the novelty dance/comedy duo 8.6 Second Bazooka was wildly successful earlier this year, they frequently mentioned that despite their success, their crazy schedule and the big crowds they were drawing, they only got paid about 50,000 yen each per month - that’s about US$415 at current exchange rates. That’s because they are employees of a big agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo, and they are - or were - on the bottom rung of the payscale. An employee-entertainer in Japan typically only receives half of the fee that is paid for his or her work including TV show appearances, live events, commercials and so forth, with the other half going to agency - and that’s before taxes. Funassyi is of course agency-less, so he gets 100% of his fees (minus taxes of course, plus whatever he pays to people he hires like Aicchy). On top of that he has the income pouring in from his merchandise sales, a revenue stream that’s not that lucrative for regular entertainers. It’s no wonder that some entertainers are openly envious of The Pear.
Funassyi is not the only independent or ‘self-managed’ entertainer. Others include actor/director/comedian Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi), comedian/host George Tokoro, actor/director/sharp-tongued host Shinobu Sakagami, and comedian/actor/host Hiromi. Beat Takeshi and George Tokoro are revered too much as veterans of the industry for people to comment on their incomes and such to their faces, and mid-level entertainers like Sakagami and Hiromi are secure enough to ignore or brush off such comments. Funassyi is still a newbie in the game relatively speaking, so he’s still fair game for the rather rude commentary on how much money he earns and such, although I think it’s not as bad as it used to be these days.
(Note: Different cultures have different standards on how impolite it is to talk about how money issues of course. In Japan it’s considered fairly rude, at least to someone’s face. You never ask someone outright “so how much do you make?” and so forth.)
