Manzai acts — comedy duos consisting of a boke (goofball) and tsukkomi (straight man) — are ubiquitous on Japanese television, but the form has relatively few foreign fans.
One big problem is the language barrier: Manzai-shi (manzai comics) typically spritz a mile a minute, while much of the humor revolves around wordplay. It's Japanese language as extreme sport.
Another barrier, at least for those whose tastes in standup comedy run to the observational and confessional, is that a lot of manzai routines, stripped of the speed, timing and personality used to put them across, range from the silly to the lame-brained (insert your exceptions here). More like Martin and Lewis, in other words, than Steve Carell or Bill Hicks.