Magical Lovely's Crystal Noda is active in a variety of fields, including manzai, comedy sketches, and as an MC and talk show host on variety shows. As someone who devotes himself to entertainment day and night, what does he usually keep in mind in order to convey his idea of "fun"?
"When it comes to manzai, I place great importance on mime. The key is how well you can convey the situation using your body and facial expressions. Usually, manzai comedians do something and their partner explains the situation, but in our case, our partner Murakami just makes jokes. He hardly explains anything at all.
So, in our "hanging strap" skit, it's up to my mime whether the audience thinks, "There's a hanging strap there." I try to avoid using complicated movements as much as possible so that the audience can imagine the situation I want to show."
According to Noda, mime has something in common with conversation.
"In mime, there is pantomime, which uses technique to make the viewer believe that an object is actually there, but in conversation too, there are people who try to use their skills to think, 'I'll speak like this to this person,' but I'm of the opinion that, rather than that, 'Isn't it better to think about the person in front of you?'
No matter how well-written the manual is, if the other person doesn't like it, it's best to stop the conversation, and if you feel something is off, it's best to correct course. Business communication is important, but if you focus only on technique, you'll start to wonder, "Is this really a real conversation?" In both everyday conversation and comedy, it's all about thinking about how the person in front of you is feeling.
To begin with, I'm clumsy and have no athletic ability, and I don't have the skill to make people laugh. I always think I do a good job considering my specs. It's similar to the theory that "people who were bad at things but practiced and got better" are more suited to being instructors, but because I've always had to create everything from scratch, I can see the structure of things and understand the feelings of people who can't do it. Maybe that's why I think "teaching" and "communicating" are so important."
Even Noda, a seasoned comedian, can make mistakes. The comedy skit "Shadow," which he performed in the semi-finals of "King of Conte" (hereafter KOC), was one of his favorites, but...
"It's a comedy skit filled with things that happen in anime, but there are no punch lines, so it really doesn't resonate with people who aren't anime fans. When I tried it out at the Lumine the Yoshimoto comedy hall before the KOC finals, there was so little laughter that you could hear the fabric rubbing against my clothes (laughs). The lesson I learned from this experience is that whether or not it resonates depends on the person you're talking to. Even with the same material, the reaction can be completely different depending on the venue and audience. The reason I was able to make it to the semi-finals with that material was because it was in front of an awards competition and an audience that loved comedy."
Through failure, I have learned how to communicate through trial and error, and at the same time, I have gained experience.
"If you perform a skit at a comedy hall and it doesn't go over well, you fix that part. In the same way, I think the only way to communicate is to gain experience and adjust it. However, rather than just vaguely trying something new every time, it's better to make it a 'meaningful experience' for yourself.
I like to grow, but I've never thought it was okay to fail when I'm in front of people, and when I lose an award, it's painful and I dwell on it for a long time. That's why I reflect. It's painful to reflect, but it helps me to use that experience next time. Every time, I try to think, 'Will this get through to the audience today?' and if it doesn't, I look back and think, 'What did I do wrong?' It's a cycle that I repeat.
He also said that there is something he values more than technique.
"For example, when talking about anecdotes, what's important is to put an original perspective on something that happens. It's the same for all comedians, but even if nothing happens, they'll still present it as something funny, and even if something unpleasant happens, they'll turn it into a positive thing by saying, 'This is what happened!' I think that adding your own perspective and outputting it in an interesting way is the real joy of being a comedian."
The comedian with the strongest "communication skills" that Noda envies
Finally, Noda-san shared who he thinks is good at communicating. First, he chose Vacuum Jessica as the "number one communicator" for the 2024 M-1.
"Both the songs they performed in the finals, 'Shopping Street' and 'Angela Aki's Piano is Too Big', were unrealistic in setting, but they got the message across. They were structured so that the joke they made at the beginning was picked up on in the second half, but I wondered how they thought the audience would remember what they said at the beginning. Usually, you feel uneasy and want to explain, but that material got across without that. In fact, I think it was funny because they didn't explain things too carefully."
Next up was Takahiku Kuruma of Reiwa Roman, who also won the M-1 for the second consecutive year in 2012. He teamed up with Noda on Prime Video's "The Golden Combo: The Battle to Decide the Strongest New Combo," and in the final showdown, he improvised for about 90 seconds, captivating the audience with his overwhelming expressiveness.
"As you can see from watching their manzai performance in the M-1 finals, Kuruma is a comedy duo at heart. Their acting ability is simply outstanding. In addition to that, there are people like Kazunobu Kubota of Toro Salmon and Seiya of Shimofuri Myojo who occasionally appear in the world of comedy, but when suddenly asked to 'do something free for one minute,' they can respond instantly and continue doing it for a long time.
Even when suddenly thrown into the batter's box, their mouths and bodies move automatically, allowing them to think about the next development without sacrificing resources for output. They are the best performers, and I think they have the ability to communicate. I envy them, and they're cool.
But if you ask them, "How are you able to do that?", they'll probably just say, "Somehow." Because that's the reality. In contrast, I'm a non-talented person who gets quiet in a dressing room with a lot of people, and I rarely talk to people, so I wonder if it's okay for me to be interviewed about "how to communicate" (laughs)."
Noda Crystal's personal rules for making things more interesting
・Put your heart into "thinking about the people who will be watching."
- Treat everything as a meaningful experience and keep trying and failing.
Always convey your experience from your own perspective.
