Yoshiaki Furukawa: My Manzai-style Thought Process

2021/08/27

Watching recorded manzai (stand-up comedy) shows while looking forward to new material is my small daily relaxation. As the saying goes, "the soul of a three-year-old remains until a hundred," and as a typical (?) Osaka native with comedy and "Rokko Oroshi" (the Hanshin Tigers' fight song) ingrained in me, just having a "punchline" (ochi) in anything cheers me up. Drawing the audience in with a natural "hook" (tsukami), organizing the flow of the story with "funny man" (boke) and "straight man" (tsukkomi) routines, and finally closing with a punchline—even as I laugh out loud, I realize the high level of logic in manzai and sigh in admiration.

I am a basic researcher fascinated by the functions of metalloproteins and, unfortunately, not a manzai comedian. However, research is very similar to manzai. During my student days spent entirely on experiments, I compiled my proud results into a paper and triumphantly asked my professor for corrections. I received the manuscript back with "So, what?" written in red ink everywhere, along with the single comment: "So, what's the 'funny' part?"

At first, I was furious, but he had perfectly seen through my inability to explain what I wanted to claim in my research. I realized that my manuscript was just a report—it had no clever hook and no punchline to satisfy the reader.

Since then, I have made it a point to think of a hook and a punchline based on the experimental results and then write the paper with the vibe of a manzai routine. Of course, I don't intend to play the "funny man," but by playing the "straight man" to my own writing, the manuscript is naturally refined, and my thoughts become surprisingly well-organized. After that, if I can successfully counter the intense "tsukkomi" (critiques) from reviewers, the paper is published in a journal and released to the world. However, I must not be satisfied there. How much "laughter" did my paper get? In other words, how many citations from other researchers is the most important outcome for me. I have had the content of my papers criticized by name, but that motivates me much more than having no response at all.

On the other hand, I do get discouraged when I think, "After all that hard work, only single-digit citations?" Hoping that people will eventually understand might be the same feeling as an unsuccessful manzai comedian. It's not good to take things too seriously, but if you give up, it's all over. If I can respond to the harsh critiques from reviewers and judges with a thick skin and a "composed" (ochi-tsuita) attitude, things should go well along with the laughter. Imagining myself drawing a huge roar of laughter from the audience, I continue to tap away at my keyboard today.