KYOTO -- Humor may be, along with art and music, universal, but it often doesn't travel across borders very well. What has them rolling in the aisles in London may leave them rolling their eyes in Laos. A comedian who brings down the house in Athens, Greece, may receive only polite applause in Athens, Ga.
In the case of Japan, kyogen, rakugo and manzai performers enjoy huge domestic audiences, but have found limited success outside Japan. Even a ubiquitous entertainer such as Beat Takeshi is famous internationally not as a sharp-tongued comedian but as a serious dramatist.
One Japanese comedian who has received critical acclaim abroad as such is Issei Ogata. Offbeat and witty are two adjectives critics have used to describe his one-man comic routines. Unlike the nonsense that spews from the ever-changeable talentless tarento on Japanese television, Ogata's sharp, satirical works have a depth and reality that make the viewer think about, rather than forget, the state of the world.