Muramoto Makes His Last Stand Before Leaving for the U.S.
In his final show before moving to the US, Muramoto Daisuke wowed a sold-out crowd of 1,100 in the Yomiuri Hall in downtown Tokyo with his trademark routine dealing with taboo topics rarely covered by Japanese comedians. The show served as a kind of a sending off party for the fans of the sometimes controversial but never boring Muramoto. Provided his visa comes through, Muramoto will finally be on his way to the US to make people laugh in English. His goal of crossing over into the US comedy scene was a long time in planning, with several visits to the states to study English while taking the stage at local comedy clubs over the years. Like the rest of the world, his big plan was delayed by the pandemic but with conditions getting better stateside now all that’s left is obtaining the proper visa and taking the final leap.
It’s hard to believe that he will be able to take the stage anytime soon in the US with the confidence and total command of his craft that he possessed in his final show in Japan. After performing all over the country over the past few years as a standup comedian (Muramoto usually performs as half of the manzai duo Woman Rush Hour), Muramoto handled difficult subjects like nuclear power, Fukushima, religion, war, discrimination, and vaccines with expert balance, making sure that he made his points and provided plenty of places for laughter for the sometimes tense audience. For people that regularly attended his shows, much of the routine was an assortment of his greatest hits with some new material mixed in.
Careful to acknowledge that many issues are not black and white, he touched on how difficult it is to talk about nuclear power being from Fukui, a prefecture with a high degree of plants noting that the livelihood of a large number of friends and family depend on those plants. He even compared the nuclear power plants and their relationship to the towns that have them to that of illegal drugs and an addict. He recalled another time when he was doing this routine and a somewhat tough-looking skinhead came up to him after the show and said, “Don’t worry. It is possible to quit drugs!” Muramoto also noted that with all the different events he had been invited to speak on the issue of the nuclear power plants that, ironically, he himself was making a living off the plants.
Finally, he also talked about his father who passed away in October of last year to cancer. Like his final television appearance on THE MANZAI in December, he brought up the fact that people often don’t appreciate what they’ve got until it’s gone, this time linking this to the loss of his father (and not him as he insinuated on television). He even posthumously crowned his father as “the greatest comedian” because of his ability to crack Muramoto up with jokes about his anything-but-funny terminal cancer at the time. After ending his show with a standing ovation, the crowd was thrilled to see his manzai partner Nakayama Paradise join Muramoto on stage and treat everyone to a final taste of Woman Rush Hour. The short routine was a renewal of the routine that shocked the comedy world in 2017 on the television show THE MANZAI as well as a funny bit where his usually almost silent sidekick Nakayama got to get in a few humorous jabs at his soon-to-departed partner. And just like that, with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” playing him off, Muramoto bid a tearful farewell to his fans.
The task of making it big in the United States as a comedian is a daunting one, especially considering English is Muramoto’s second language. Still, after witnessing the determination that he has shown working toward his “American Dream,” it’s hard to rule out the possibility of success and impossible to root against him.
