{"id":3838,"date":"2019-10-29T17:26:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T08:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/where-to-see-english-stand-up-comedy-around-tokyo\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T11:34:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T02:34:44","slug":"where-to-see-english-stand-up-comedy-around-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/where-to-see-english-stand-up-comedy-around-tokyo\/","title":{"rendered":"English Stand-up Comedy Around Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Turn on the TV at any given moment during \u201cGolden Hour\u201d (what we Yanks call Primetime) and you\u2019ll no doubt see comedy duos interspersed in the endless waves of food tasting, international shenanigans, and celebrity anecdotes that seem to permeate the average Japanese media diet. Those comedy teams, called manzai,<\/em> form the backbone of Japanese comedic tradition that goes back hundreds of years. If you can understand the Japanese language and culture to the point of \u201cgetting\u201d the average manzai routine, I can\u2019t recommend seeing a live performance enough. But remember that comedy always depends not only on the performer’s skills but the audience’s ability to quickly sort out the wordplay, nuanced situations, cultural references, and so-forth; AKA get the joke. Even after 20 years in Japan, I have a fair amount of trouble understanding Japanese comedy and almost none of that has to do with the language barrier\u2014 I simply wasn\u2019t raised in Japan and don\u2019t get some of the context.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Everyone needs a laugh<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Luckily there\u2019s a critical mass of other foreigners and Japanese doing stand-up in English around Greater Tokyo (with more talent than myself) that don\u2019t mind taking to the stage with nothing more than a microphone, some funny stories, and some time to tell them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

[spacer height=”5px”]<\/h4>\r\n

Good Heavens<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Located in the bohemian-trendy Shimo-Kitazawa district, this British pub has been hosting possibly the only weekly English language stand-up sets for ages now. So long in fact that you might even see some famous comics from your home country dropping in to do a set while they\u2019re touring Japan just for the hell of it.<\/p>\r\n

Date & Time:<\/em><\/strong> Most Wednesdays starting around 7pm or so.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Place:<\/em><\/strong> 32-5 Daizawa, Setagaya, Tokyo<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Cost:<\/em><\/strong> \u00a51500, includes drink.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

[spacer height=”5px”]<\/h4>\r\n

Antenna America<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Probably the best place in all of Kanto to enjoy some craft beer and authentic Buffalo wings, this rooftop cafe in a nondescript building in the middle of downtown Yokohama brings stand-up to the Bayside City twice a month in the form of both English and Japanese language showcases.<\/p>\r\n

Date & Time:<\/em><\/strong> Usually twice a month Thursdays; one week is English, the next is Japanese.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Place:<\/em><\/strong> 5-4 Yoshidamachi, Naka, Yokohama, Kanagawa<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Cost:<\/em><\/strong> \u00a51500, includes drink.<\/p>\r\n

[spacer height=”5px”]<\/h4>\r\n

Gamuso Asagaya<\/h4>\r\n

A sweet dive bar that plays host to some of the freshest underground music performances and art gallery exhibitions in town, Gamuso also showcases standup comedy from time to time\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Date & Time:<\/em><\/strong> Usually twice a month Thursdays; one week is English, the next is Japanese.<\/p>\r\n

Place:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a02-12-5 Asagayakita, Suginami,<\/a> Tokyo<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Cost:<\/em><\/strong> \u00a51500, includes drink.<\/p>\r\n

[spacer height=”5px”]<\/h4>\r\n

Improvzilla at The Crocodile<\/h4>\r\n

This venerable venue in Shinjuku where some of the best indie music in Japan rocks out also is the main stage of the Tokyo Comedy Store’s main improv show, Improvazilla<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Date & Time:<\/em><\/strong> Last Friday of the month; on hiatus in December.<\/p>\r\n

Place:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a06-8-18 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Cost:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\u00a51500, plus a one-drink minimum purchase<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turn on the TV at any given moment during \u201cGolden Hour\u201d (what we Yanks call Primetime) and you\u2019ll no doubt see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[261,65,59,37],"tags":[92,47,45],"class_list":["post-3838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-events","category-life-in-japan","category-tokyo-2","tag-november","tag-tokyo-city-2","tag-tokyo-metropolis-2"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50431,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions\/50431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}