The Kansai region, which includes the cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, is Japan's comedy center. The biggest comedy talent agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo, is based in Osaka and its comics mostly deliver their quips in the Kansai dialect.
So why does Kansai, — especially Osaka — produce more funnymen (and women) than anywhere else in the country? As natives of Japan's second city, I've been told, Osakans have a traditional disrespect for authority, as well as a traditional love of comedy — not traits often associated with their sober-sided samurai rulers in Edo (now Tokyo) or their stodgy bureaucratic descendants. American parallels would be Chicago and the outer boroughs of New York, both more prolific producers of comic talent than power centers such as Washington and Manhattan.
So it's no surprise that an Osaka native, Seitaro Kobayashi, should make his directorial debut with a comedy, "Kazoku no Hiketsu (Family Secrets)," set in his home city. Or that he should have a gift for laughs — so much so that the Directors Guild of Japan awarded him their Newcomers Prize for this film.