The cracks of a cobble stone road could be a maze, and the joints between bricks could be an amida lottery. Taking such ideas from commonplace scenery is exactly what Masaki Kagajo does in his textbook called “Notore! Putt Book”, published in April of 2008.
Born and raised in Sapporo, Kagajo focused solely on soccer during high school. He also loved to make people laugh, and made an appearance on the TV show, “Kasou Taishou”. After graduating high school he decided to become a pro soccer player, traveling to England. He saw an insurmountable difference in skill level, and decided to concentrate on making people laugh.
“I want to find a new way of making people laugh that no one has ever used before.” After returning to Japan, Kagajo worked at a radio station while honing his own comedy skills. He finally found his own style, called “Mitate”, in which he showed scenery from daily life but added narration and music to give a different impression.
From the Italian word for humor, he called his performance “Scherzo”. He began performing in 1999 and continues to this day. A children’s book publisher saw a performance in 2005 and asked him to write a book. Thus, the “Putt Book” was created.
In February of 2009, he held a workshop about “Mitate” in a Japanese school in Prague, Czech Republic. “I use local photographs. As long as there are cracks in the road and sockets on the walls, I realized I could do this workshop anywhere in the world,” he said.
His next workshop will take place whenever and wherever he finds good materials. What will be next? I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.
Article by Eichi Sato
Translation by David Neptune
