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Toshiaki Kasuga

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Toshiaki Kasuga
Kasuga's iconic "pink vest"
Born (1979-02-09) February 9, 1979 (age 45)
Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan
MediumOwarai
Television
Radio
Internet
NationalityJapanese
Years active2000–present
GenresOwarai, K-1

Toshiaki Kasuga (春日 俊彰, Kasuga Toshiaki, born February 9, 1979) is a Japanese owarai (comedian) best known as the boke half of a popular owarai duo Audrey　(オードリー) alongside Masayasu Wakabayashi (若林 正恭). He is 176 cm tall and weighs 84 kg according to the Audrey's official website provided by their agency K Dash stage. However, he has been gaining weight lately. On stage, he usually wears a pink vest and white pants.

Though he was also a K-1 fighter in 2007, he retired after two fighting matches suffering a ruptured eardrum.

Bio

  • 1979 - Born in Tokorozawa, Saitama
  • 1991 - Graduated from Meiho Elementary School, Tokorozawa, Saitama
  • 1993 - Met Wakabayashi as a classmate
  • 1994 - Graduated from Nihon University Dai-ni Junior High School in Tokyo
  • 1997 - Graduated from Nihon University Dai-ni High School in Tokyo
  • 1997 - Entered Nihon University majoring in commerce in Tokyo
  • 2000 - Formed owari duo "Nice Middle" with Wakabayashi
  • 2005 - Changed the duo's name to "Audrey", taken from Audrey Hepburn
  • 2007 - Defeated by Wang HongXiang at K-1 Tryout
  • 2008 - Won 2nd place at Autobacs M-1 Grand Prix 2008
  • 2009 - Won 1st place at Shinshun Owarai Taisho - New wave awards (won 76,009 votes out of total 212,036 from TV audiences)

Early life

Kasuga was born in Kasukabe, Saitama. He has a younger sister that, according to him, resembles Ayumi Tanimoto, a judo athlete. His parents met at their work place. He was liberally raised, called "the cute one" in a privileged family.[1]

With excellent reflexes, he learned swimming from his early childhood through his junior high school years. He attended a private junior high school in Tokyo, Nihon University Dai-ni Junior High, and met Wakabayashi there when they were 8th graders. Wakabayashi, a trouble-making kid sitting just behind Kasuga, played with him, sneakily cutting his hair from behind without telling him. In spite of Wakabayashi's misbehavior, Kasusga's first impression on Wakabayashi was that he was a "cute boy", and they got along. They also attended the same high school, Nihon University Dai-ni High School and joined the American Football Club. Kasuga was chosen as a member of the Kanto's all-star American Football Team as a defensive end. However, a penny-pincher, Kasuga did not want to buy outdoor shoes for astro turf that players were suggested to wear for the all-star game, and improperly wearing indoor shoes, was replaced soon after the game had started.[2]

After his high school years, Wakabayashi invited Kasuga to be his manzai partner. However, Kasuga decided to attend Nihon University instead. He spent his university years by taking part-time jobs such as a sales clerk position at Seibu Dome. He mentioned that one day a Glay concert was held there while he was working, and he was very moved after ten years when he was invited to Glay vocalist Teru's birthday party as his favorite aspiring comedian.[3]

Attending mass communication seminars, Kasuga initially planned to be a TV producer while Wakabayashi kept inviting Kasuga to start a comedy career.[4] Finally Kasuga accepted his offer, and they formed a comedy duo, "Nice Middle", in 2000.

Dark days to M-1 Grand Prix 2008

Although they happily jumped into a comedy career, they stayed unsuccessful for several years. One day, six years since their debut, a TV play writer called Wakabayashi in person and told him "Kasuga has no talent as a tsukkomi. If you want to play a boke, you'd better look for another partner." Wakabayashi, then the boke of the duo, relayed the comment to the then tsukkomi Kasuga, but he initially thought Wakabashi was just joking around and did not believe him at all.[5] They eventually swapped their roles, went through a trial-and-error process, and finally they made the first appearance on terrestrial TV on New Year's Day of 2008. On December 21, 2008, the two made it all the way into the final round of the M-1 Grand Prix of the year from the consolation match. During the first session in the final, they were temporarily in the top position above the other eight duos, but eventually ended up 2nd behind NON STYLE.

Rise to popularity

Shaving his sideburns (a hair style called a "techno-cut"), wearing his hair parted "80/20" (80% of the hair is combed to the right and the rest to the left) and a pink sweater vest, Kasuga, a unique arrogant character, has been broadly accepted by audiences since the M-1 Grand Prix. Now, many female Japanese tarentos i.e. Akina Minami, Anna Tsuchiya, Miho Kanno, Nozomi Ohashi, Emi Suzuki, and Nana Eikura have commented that he is one of their favorite comedians. His stingy character has also gained huge attention from audiences; his apartment and life style have appeared on a number of TV variety shows. Given his popularity as a member of Audrey, he has appeared with Wakabayashi on TV commercials for major companies such as Nintendo, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Kaunet (a subsidiary of Kokuyo).

Given Audrey's popularity, 81% of the TV audience voters at the TV program "Surprise" (broadcast on 5/1/2009) indicated that they believed Audrey's popularity was at the peak at the time.[6]

In October 2009, Kasuga was chosen with Wakabayashi as a new regular member for "Waratte Iitomo", the nation's most popular afternoon TV show, and a radio personality for "All Night Nippon", one of the longest-running radio programs in Japan.

In 2011, Kasuga appeared on a TBS show where he and 2 other comedians with martial arts backgrounds took to a mock-fight with Korean Female K1 fighter Lim Soo-Jung. This was broadcast internationally, and received criticism and complaints from Korean viewers. The female fighter was told the fight would be with comedians with little knowledge of fighting, and that the show segment would be a brief moment to showcase her talents; instead, the three Japanese comedians landed major blows upon Lim, who then had to take 8 weeks to recover from her injuries. Lim was the only one not to be wearing protective gear.

Arrogant character on stage

Kasuga walks heavily and slowly with his proud 101 cm chest expanding toward the center of the stage. At the opening, he drops a bossy comment to female audiences such as "Would you like to deliver Kasuga's baby?" In manzai, he tries to shoot tsukkomi and each time it turns out to be terribly off-the-line boke. Also, he interrupts Wakabayashi's talks with delayed responses and frequent gags.

In manzai and talk, he responds back saying "Oui" (which he means "Yes"). Holding up his index finger, he yells "Toose!" meaning "Hey!" or "I did it!" This comes from a common pose or call of American Football players.

Penny pincher

His stingy life style has been introduced in many variety shows. He says that he wants to save as much money as possible to buy a single-family home in the future.

Clothing: Visiting his senior colleagues' home and offering to clean their room, Kasuga gets their old shirts and pants in return. So far, he has succeeded in getting more than one hundred items.[7]

Food: He takes home brown bag lunches left by others in backstage rooms.[8] Also, taking candies from those rooms, he makes his own original juice by dissolving those candies in tap water.

Housing: Kasuga lives alone in a one-room/no-bath rental apartment (¥39,000, approx. $400 p/m) located in Minami-asagaya, Suginami-ku, Tokyo. Most of his belongings were originally garbage or given to him by others. He collects discarded furniture, electronics items and books from the street and is now looking for a digital television. His apartment windows are covered by sheets of cardboard by himself to keep cold air out. To keep his body clean, he uses baby wipes or staff shower rooms in the gallery or office building of broadcasting companies.

Though he is stingy, according to Wakabayashi, Kasuga appears to resolve trouble simply through money to avoid physical fights. On a Candid Camera-like Japanese TV program, Kasuga agreed to help Wakabayashi, who faked getting involved in an argument over a traffic accident, by spending all of Kasuga's savings of ¥3 million. However, Kasuga pretended not to know Wakabayashi when a yakuza-looking counterpart of the accident showed up in front of him.[9]

Personal life

He is described as reserved, polite and modest, contrary to his character on TV. Wakabayashi has said he has never heard Kasuga speaking bad about others. Mikio Date, a member of owarai duo Sandwichman has also said Kasuga had neither spoken ill of others nor agreed with other comedians' bad comments on others at their joint live rehearsals.[10]

His father has been very supportive of his career, making original DVDs of Kasuga to distribute to the family's neighbors, and frequently giving him advice by e-mail.[11]　Though initially against his comedy career, his mother is also supportive, distributing to neighbors the Playboy magazine when one of the issues carried an article on Kasuga.[12] According to Kasuga, all of his family members are big-boned. His mother used to be a softball player.

Kasuga had a fanatical female fan called "Ochimusha" (stray samurai) when he was a football player in high school.[13] From the age of 20, he had a girlfriend (called "Dogu" (clay doll) by Wakabayashi) for five years. When he dated her, his friends called him "Moai" due to his big head, and named the two "the mysterious couple." She later said on the TV program "London Hearts" that he was gentle, but she separated from him because she did not like his indecisiveness.[14] On the show, unexpectedly meeting her at a bar, he got very nervous and passed her once but looked back at her repeatedly. (He just looked like he was "spinning around.") [15]

On his birthday, February 9, 2009, he was photographed by a paparazzo during the night while he was dating a 30-year-old woman who, according to Wakabayashi, resembles the "Hippo of Isodin." (One of Japanese confectionery/pharmaceutical company Meiji Seika's anime characters. See the "External Links" section below). Kasuga later said that he was going to make her his girlfriend, but after the photo's publication, he was unsuccessful in reaching her.[16]

As of August 2011, Kasuga is single and has never been married.

Interests

Kasuga's interests include American football, motorcycles, swimming, gourmet program watching. He likes chubby older women in their 40s-50s such as Kumiko Mori, Yuri Takano, and Nobuko Ochiai. He is a big fan of the Seibu Lions, a Japanese professional baseball team, and Denki Groove, a Japanese technopop band.

Trivia

Kasuga has passed the second level of the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Test. He also won the second place in the "Freediving (dynamic apnea without fins) Championship of Japanese Show Business on the TV program "Q-sama!!", with a record of 92 meters, then fifth place on the all-time list in Japan.

Media

TV

Regular

  • Campus Night Fuji (キャンパスナイト･フジ) -- Fuji Television/CX (4/10/2009-)
  • School Kakumei (スクール革命!) -- Nippon Television (4/5/2009-)
  • Merengue no Kimochi (メレンゲの気持ち) -- Nippon Television (4/25/2009-) *Every three weeks
  • Zenbu uso (ぜんぶウソ) -- Nippon Television (10/3/2009-)
  • Morita Kazuyoshi Hour Waratte Iitomo! (森田一義アワー笑っていいとも！) -- Fuji Television (10/9/2009-) *Every Monday

Irregular

  • Kaito Shinobi-na (快盗!!シノビーナ) -- TV Asahi (1/17/2009-)
  • Quiz Presen Variety Q-sama!! (クイズプレゼンバラエティ Qさま！！) -- TV Asahi

Radio

Internet TV

Regular

Magazines

  • Tokyo Isshukan
  • TV Pia

CM

References

  1. ^ Talk Live "Kasuga Now" 6/14/2008
  2. ^ Oshareism (Nippon Broadcasting), 1/25/2009
  3. ^ Kasuga's blog "Kasuga"
  4. ^ Ame-talk (TV Asahi), 5/14/2009
  5. ^ Ame-talk (TV Asahi), 5/14/2009
  6. ^ Surprise (Nippon Television), 5/1/2009
  7. ^ Jinsei ga kawaru ippunkan no fukaii hanashi (Nippon Television), 5/25/2009
  8. ^ London Hearts (TV Asahi), 4/28/2009
  9. ^ Audrey's Shampoo Ojisan (Nippon Cultural Broadcasting) 5/20/2009
  10. ^ Sandwichiman's Radio Yarasero (Kari) (FM Izumi), 5/5/2009
  11. ^ All Night Nippon R (Nippon Broadcasting), 2/28/2009
  12. ^ Utaban (Tokyo Broadcasting System), 5/24/2009
  13. ^ Ame-talk (TV Asahi), 5/14/2009
  14. ^ London Hearts (TV Asahi), 4/28/2009
  15. ^ London Hearts (TV Asahi), 4/28/2009
  16. ^ All Night Nippon R (Nippon Broadcasting), 2/28/2009
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