I saw Mama Tarte!

It is probably already a well-known fact that I am obsessed with the comedy duo Mama Tarte. I didn't know much about them until around the end of October, but since all the girls my age whose podcasts I enjoy listening to have been chanting "Mama Tarte... Mama Tarte..." for the past few years, they were a duo whose existence I was at least aware of. I never imagined I would become this obsessed with them in just two months.

The reason I got hooked was Satoko. Recently, Satoko and I have been obsessed with listening to comedy radio shows, and since I'm the type of person who always consumes content recommended to me, I've been watching and listening to whatever she says is funny, which led me to Mama Tarte's radio show.
I am an incredibly good friend who actually watches, listens to, and buys things that are recommended to me at least once, so if you have something you want to recommend, you should definitely tell me.

With Mama Tarte, you are overwhelmed by the sheer size of Otsuru Himan, who is 180 cm tall and weighs 189 kg, but his partner, Hihara, delivers such gentle and funny retorts that I've never encountered before, which makes them incredibly addictive.
Since I've been listening to Mama Tarte's radio show constantly lately, all I can talk about to my friends is Mama Tarte. When I told my friend in Kyoto, whom I wrote about last time, that I was obsessed with them, she immediately looked up their profile and, just from their promotional photo, got close to the truth by saying, "Wait... is he using the name Otsuru Himan because he looks like Otsuru Gitan...!?"

After listening to their radio show almost every day for two months, I wanted to see them in person so badly that I looked for any comedy live shows I could attend before the end of the year. I found a new material show by a comedy duo called Fire Thunder where Mama Tarte was appearing as a guest, so I bought a ticket on a whim while drunk. Then, with that same momentum, I bought a long-sleeve T-shirt and stickers from Suzuri. They are such great stickers that I have one on my phone now.

Although I had bought the ticket, I had only ever been to Lumine the Yoshimoto for comedy shows, so I was quite nervous about going to a smaller theater in Shimokitazawa. Since it was a show where you pay for the ticket at the theater, I thought about not going for a split second on the day of, but the organizers, Fire Thunder, had tweeted (posted) something to the effect of "If you can't make it, please make sure to cancel," and I thought, "That's so true..." so I gathered my courage and went.

My ticket number was around 82, and since I bought it quite late, I assumed it was a late number, but it turned out to be right in the middle, so I ended up sitting exactly in the center of the theater. The stage was very close to the audience, and the seats were very close to the person next to me—so close that I couldn't even take off the down jacket I had worn that day without bothering the people on both sides of me. I felt deeply moved that I was able to see the massive Otsuru Himan in such a small venue.

Vacuum Jessica, who would also be in the M-1 finals the next day, was there too. It wasn't the material they did at the M-1, but it was incredibly funny, and I was even moved by the realization that this is the kind of humor from people who make a living performing manzai on TV. Mama Tarte performed material that (I believe) isn't on YouTube, and I watched it thinking that if it were Mama Tarte, they might be performing the material they would use for the M-1 repechage the next day, and I laughed a lot.
Then, when I watched the repechage on TV the next day, they were indeed performing the same material, so I couldn't help but get excited. In Mama Tarte's set at this live show, I loved the bit where Hiwa-chan (Hihara) walks sideways like a crab, backing away to make it look like he's chasing after the mapo tofu that Otsuru Himan spilled, so when Hiwa-chan crab-walked all the way to the edge of the stage and disappeared during the repechage, I was so happy I was ready to give a standing ovation.

This YouTube video will probably become unavailable someday, but it was very funny, so please watch it at the end of this year if you'd like.

The other guest duo, Yasashiizu, and the main act, Fire Thunder, were also incredibly funny, and I thought that if I could see things this funny, I would definitely go to the theater again. I had only ever been to shows at Lumine featuring comedians who are very active on TV, so I was quite shocked that there are live shows where you can see them from such a close distance. I can understand why some people get so hooked that they become regulars, and I could also understand how "gachi-koi" (serious romantic feelings for an idol/celebrity) can be born in such an environment.

Also, Fire Thunder's boke, Sakiyama-san, had a face and name that I felt I had definitely met before, and I spent the whole show thinking we must have met, but he was someone I had absolutely never met. It was just a face and name that felt familiar.

After the show, quite unusually—for the first time in about five years—I thought, "Today is the day for Magic Spice in Shimokitazawa," and went to eat soup curry. Looking at Twitter (X) later, it turned out Otsuru Himan also went to eat at Magic Spice after the show, and I thought it was amazing that such a near-miss could happen. Even so, even if Otsuru Himan had been there at the time I went, I probably would have just slurped my soup curry in silence without saying a word to him.

Note: Mama Tarte's radio show 1, "Radio Mother" on Gera
You have to pay to listen to the archives, and I haven't been able to pay yet.

Note: Mama Tarte's radio show 2, "Radio Ma-chan" on stand.fm
You can listen to everything for free, so I was listening to this one before paying for Gera, but it seems the program is ending soon...