is a Japanese

comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

dramaturge A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ...

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

, and

manga artist A is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As of 2006, about 3,000 professional manga artists were working in Japan. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist be ...

. Outside Japan, he is most well known for directing and acting in "" videos (e.g. ""), and for playing the Mac (opposite

Jin Katagiri is a comedian, actor, sculptor, and potter from Saitama Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from Kasukabe High School and Tama Art University. Outside Japan, he is most well known for playing the PC (opposite Kentarō Kobayashi who plays the Mac) ...

who plays the PC) in the "

Get A Mac The "Get a Mac" campaign is a television advertising campaign created for Apple Inc. (Apple Computer, Inc. at the start of the campaign) by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the company's advertising agency, that ran from 2006 to 2009. The advertising camp ...

" advertising campaign in Japan. He is a member of the

Rahmens is a Japanese comedy duo, referred to as an '' owarai kombi'', consisting of Jin Katagiri () and Kentarō Kobayashi (). Formation Katagiri and Kobayashi met as students and formed a conte group in 1996 while studying printmaking at Tama Art Unive ...

owarai is a broad word used to describe Japanese comedy as seen on television. The word ''owarai'' is the honorific form of the word ''warai'' (by adding o- prefix), meaning "a laugh" or "a smile". ''Owarai'' is most common on Japanese variety shows ...

'' comedy duo. His

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

series, ''Hana Usagi'', ran from 1999 to 2004 in ''

Young Magazine Uppers was a semimonthly seinen manga magazine, published in Japan from April 1, 1998, until October 19, 2004, by Kodansha. List of serialized manga * ''Piano no Mori'' by Makoto Isshiki (1998-2004), (moved to Weekly Morning after the cancellation of ...

'' (published by

Kodansha is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', ''Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' an ...

Controversy

Kobayashi was assigned the role of Director of the Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony; however, a 1998 comedy show recording of him making an insensitive joke about

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

surfaced. In that comedy show, he said "We tried to play Holocaust with these human-shaped papers for a kids TV show, but our producer heavily scolded us." It was pointed out that Kobayashi's selection may violate the

Olympic Charter The Olympic Charter is a set of rules and guidelines for the organisation of the Olympic Games, and for governing the Olympic movement. Its last revision was on the 17th of July 2020 during the 136th IOC Session, held by video conference. Adop ...

, which advocates anti-discrimination. On 22 July, State Minister of Defense

Yasuhide Nakayama is a Japanese politician who served as the Senior Vice Minister of Defense of Japan. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), he was elected in December 2012 as a member of the House of Representatives of Japan and re-elected in the Dece ...

updated his Twitter account. He posted: "I immediately contacted and talked to

Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...

(SWC)." The SWC released a statement and expressed the view that Kobayashi's jokes include those for people with disabilities. On 22 July, the

Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games The (TOCOG) was the organisation responsible for overseeing the planning and development of the 2020 Summer Olympics, 2020 Summer Olympic and 2020 Summer Paralympics, Paralympic Games. History The Organising Committee was launched on 24 Januar ...

(TOCOG) dismissed Kobayashi. He made an apology comment and said: "My job is to entertain people. I should not make people feel uncomfortable. I understand that my stupid choice of words at that time was wrong, and I regret it." On November 16, he announced his retirement from the entertainment industry.

Notes

External links

Kentaro Kobayashi
manga at Media Arts Database 1973 births Japanese male actors Japanese comedians Japanese theatre directors Japanese theatre managers and producers Manga artists Dramaturges People from Kanagawa Prefecture Apple Inc. advertising Living people {{manga-artist-stub

Controversy

See also

Notes

External links