[Human Observation] Learning from Shimako Iwai on 'Go-ji ni Muchu!': The Overwhelming Freedom That Transcends Social Constraints

Hello, I am an observer.

Since moving to the Kanto region, there is one program that brought a culture shock to my daily life: TOKYO MX's 'Go-ji ni Muchu!'.

I am simply overwhelmed by the avant-garde broadcast code that allows crude jokes to fly freely during the evening time slot on terrestrial television, to the point where I doubt my own time zone, wondering, 'Is it really 5:00 PM right now?'

Both the regular commentators and the guests exude a personality that cannot be summed up by the word 'eccentric.' In that chaotic space, the contrast is brilliant between announcer Kakihana, who rides the commentators' groove with exquisite balance, and announcer Oshima, who brushes off even the most heated, vulgar talk with a cold, ironic gaze, saying, 'Yes, yes.' Discovering that such a highly entertaining information program existed was truly a paradigm shift.

A colleague who has never lived in the Kansai region once remarked, 'Go-ji ni Muchu! has a sort of Kansai-like vibe, doesn't it?' but if you ask me, it is completely different.
Kansai comedy is built upon a kind of 'peaceful, predictable harmony' where the trio of rhythm, tempo, and punchline is ingrained at the level of compulsory education. A program that develops such taboo-free talk on an evening information show does not exist within my range of observation, at least. I say this as the highest compliment: the anarchic, 'anything goes' nature of 'Go-ji ni Muchu!' clearly draws a line in the sand, separating it from that of Kansai.

Among such programs, the one I am particularly fond of is Thursday, when Shimako Iwai and Yukari Nakase appear. I register only the Thursday broadcast on my TVer list and never fail to catch up on it.

Why Thursday? It is certainly not because I like the crude jokes that Shimako-san lets fly.

She is a rare genius who cuts through the biases and the peer pressure of 'how things should be' that humans tend to be trapped by, and vividly articulates the emotions and phenomena that we have buried deep in our subconscious. Behind that sharp insight lies a deep acceptance and compassion for others. Watching her through the screen, a conviction arises that 'this person must be a person of bottomless kindness.'

She tells crude jokes as if she were breathing, and walks around in other programs dressed in a leopard costume. This is not just a performance to attract attention, but perhaps a state of creativity that can only be reached because she is completely liberated from the evaluation criteria (public image) of others. Her firm core value of 'to hell with social constraints' is visible through it (my apologies if my profiling is incorrect).

Compared to Shimako-san's overwhelming sense of liberation, I must say that my own 'degree of freedom' is still a work in progress.

Shouldn't I shut out the noise around me and pursue the subjects that my antenna reacts to at any given moment more intensely and greedily? Her figure serves as a trigger for me to reflect once again on my career and life vision, and how I want to live from here on out.

Someday, I too want to live as lightly and as incisively as she does.