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The story
On Nippon TV’s “Daigo’s Comedian Receipts,” Osaka-based comedy duo Smile revealed they were paid just 7,500 yen for a 15-hour location shoot. Daigo was reportedly left speechless on learning this has been going on for 13 years.
On 5ch, discussion centered on how much Yoshimoto Kogyo (the talent agency) takes as its cut and the pay gap between Kansai local shows and Tokyo key-network programs — though plenty of harsh comments like “that’s fair, they’re just not funny” also piled up.
Osaka’s “brutal location-shoot comedian” makes a desperate plea — the shocking reality of 7,500 yen for a 15-hour shoot, going on for 13 years already… Daigo left speechless
On the July 24 episode of Nippon TV’s “Daigo’s Comedian Receipts,” titled “Naniwa Comedians Invasion SP: An SOS From Friends Who Knew Daigo Back Then,” comedians who work mainly in Osaka and go way back with Daigo gathered in the studio to air their harsh realities.
One of them was comedy duo Smile. Yosuke Seto introduced himself by saying, “Do you know what we’re called in Kansai? The brutal location-shoot comedians nobody looks up to.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
It's that simple — just make it big.
and watch tigers instead.
Even if that's an act, it reads as scarier than funny.
but I haven't seen him around lately.
Talent agencies can't run for free either.
I don't hate that renovation segment though
it's a long-running feature that's lasted 13 years lol
that's rough even so lol
No matter the channel, it's comedian after comedian trying to push their own bit,
all giving off that eager, pouncing "Koyabu" vibe (after comedian Koyabu, known for hogging the spotlight) — really annoying to watch.
Their free talk is hopelessly unfunny,
and on location shoots they're just loud — seems like fair treatment.
It's not like they're irreplaceable.
They really milk that bit.
Higashino's as sharp as ever, teasing him about it on air.
Basically like being a technical intern dispatched by a Chinese labor broker.
Is the viewer who applied for the segment the one footing that construction bill?
make more money.
so they use this as their signature bit to cash in elsewhere, meaning overall it's actually a pretty sweet deal.
There's also a variation where, during the downtime waiting for paint to dry, they got sent off to do promotional work for the Expo.
Background and Key Points
Yoshimoto Kogyo, the Osaka agency that reportedly manages over 6,000 acts, has functioned for decades as a near-monopoly gatekeeper for Kansai comedy: it owns the theaters, staffs the local variety shows, and takes an agency cut from almost every booking a comedian gets, while also controlling the pipeline that decides who gets promoted to Tokyo’s “key network” (kantou kii) programming, where pay and exposure are dramatically higher than on regional Kansai-only broadcasts. Because comedians are typically engaged as individual contractors rather than employees, Japan’s minimum wage law does not straightforwardly apply to them, which is why a flat 7,500 yen fee for a full-day, 13-year-running segment is legally murky rather than a clear violation — several posters raised the Subcontract Act and the newer Freelance Act precisely because ordinary labor protections don’t obviously cover this arrangement.
The thread didn’t converge on outrage; it split between blaming Yoshimoto’s opaque cut of location-shoot fees and Kansai-network pay scales, versus posters arguing Smile simply isn’t funny enough to command more, so 7,500 yen is “fair” treatment rather than exploitation.
What the thread leaves unexamined is how normal this actually is: only a tiny fraction of Yoshimoto’s thousands of contracted acts ever reach the earnings tier posters cite (comedians reportedly clearing tens of millions of yen a month), while most work is exactly this kind of low-paid, long-running local filler segment — treated as dues-paying exposure rather than a living wage, and rarely renegotiated once a bit becomes a fixture.
*This article is an excerpt and summary compiled from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Osaka’s “brutal location-shoot comedian” makes a desperate plea — the shocking reality of 7,500 yen for a 15-hour shoot! Already going on for 13 years… Daigo left speechless.”
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