OSAKA - In a small basement theater in Osaka's bustling Minami district, comedians from Japan and overseas are giving foreign visitors an irreverent glimpse of a side of the country rarely found in travel guides.
Located beneath L&L Bar&Restaurant in Shinsaibashi, the independently operated Osaka Comedy Club stages stand-up shows in English almost every day. Most audience members are overseas tourists, with weekend performances regularly selling out the roughly 20-seat venue.
On a Friday night in late July, the first performer was Edd, 43, a British comedian who founded the club's predecessor as part of a six-member comedy group after coming to Japan in 2011.
Edd tries to incorporate observations about Japan into his routines, offering visitors a humorous take on local customs and cultural differences.
Spotting an audience member with a tattoo, he turned Japan's restrictions on tattooed customers at some hot springs into a joke about the patches people may use to cover them.
"What they're saying is they don't want tattoos, but gaping wounds are fine," he said. "That's a bit weird, isn't it?"
Edd then revealed his solution to the problem.
"I'm going to get a tattoo of a Band-Aid," he said.
When another audience member said ice cream cost $24 at the U.S. theme park where he worked, Edd noted that it was more expensive than the club's 3,000 yen ($19) admission fee.
"We need to start charging more for this comedy show," he replied.
Edd first performed comedy in London and later took to the stage in China and elsewhere before coming to Japan.
He believes foreign visitors are drawn to the venue partly because English-language entertainment remains relatively scarce in Japan. The routines also offer insight into Japanese life, while the venue provides a place where travelers can meet one another.
Edd makes sure at least one Japanese comedian appears in every show.
Among the regular performers is Gaku Hiroshima, 36, a former web writer who discovered stand-up while looking for opportunities to write in English.
His first performance was at an open-mic event in Tokyo and went badly. Ironically, the biggest laugh came when he admitted onstage that his routine had bombed.
Hiroshima joined the Osaka club in February 2023 and earned a place in its regular shows after appearing at two open-mic events. He now performs almost daily.
The club offers a different route from established Japanese comedy schools, with aspiring performers starting as amateurs at open-mic nights and having to prove themselves before appearing in regular shows.
Hiroshima writes down ideas in the morning before developing and memorizing them. Sometimes a punchline arrives suddenly, while on other occasions he chooses a subject and painstakingly produces a succession of possible jokes.
His material draws heavily on his upbringing, life with his mother and his experiences as a gay Asian man.
Drawing on his three years in Israel, Hiroshima joked that Israelis had given him a Jewish name during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"They called me COVID. Sounds like David. I'll take it," he told the audience.
Hiroshima said he did not consciously set out to make jokes about Japan, as his material was based on his own life and naturally reflected his experiences growing up in the country.
He also said he was not using comedy to campaign against discrimination. He believed that prioritizing a message over humor could make a routine less funny, while a comedian's primary job was to get laughs.
To perform provocative material successfully, he said, comedians must build trust through friendly interaction so audience members understand that offensive-sounding remarks are part of a joke.
An Englishman in his 30s said he found the club online while searching for somewhere to enjoy himself without drinking, as he was abstaining from alcohol while his wife was pregnant.
He had not expected Japanese stand-up to be so funny and particularly enjoyed hearing comedians talk about their backgrounds and daily lives.
Hiroshima's immediate ambition is to hold his own solo show at the club. Beyond that, his aspirations become increasingly audacious -- the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, a Grammy and, finally, the Nobel Prize in Literature.
