, better known for his stage name , is a Japanese comedian. His talent agency is Watanabe Entertainment.

Life and career

Ikezaki attended Kanoya High School and graduated with a

Bachelor of Engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an academic undergraduate degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at an accredited college or university. In the UK, a Bache ...

, majoring in

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, information storage, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems a ...

Oita University is a national university in Ōita, Ōita Prefecture, Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea o ...

Tokyo Shimbun ''The Tokyo Shimbun'' (東京新聞, ''Tōkyō Shinbun'', literally ''Tokyo Newspaper'') is a Japanese newspaper published by The Chunichi Shimbun Company. The group publishes newspapers under the brand name of The Tokyo Shimbun in the Tokyo Metr ...

2015-11-11 Page 14「笑う神拾う神」 In middle school, he was in the

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

club for all three years and had inter-school competitive experience at the prefecture level. In high school, he was a part of the rowing team, and placed 2nd at the prefecture championships, and was a participant in the

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surroun ...

championships. After graduating university, Ikezaki did not pursue any jobs, but moved to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

at the recommendation of his girlfriend at the time and joined Watanabe Entertainment in April 2005. He formed the comedy duo ''Sonic Brothers'' with a friend from university who also went to Tokyo, but were unsuccessful as the group dissolved in September 2007. Ikezaki continued activities as a solo comedian afterwards. In 2008, he participated in the ''R-1 Grand Prix'' and made it to the 2nd round. In 2014, he made it to the semi-finals. In 2016, Ikezaki made it to the finals for the first time after finishing 3rd at the ''Resurrection Stage''. The year after, Ikezaki once again made it to the finals from the ''Resurrection Stage'' and finished 2nd place overall as a finalist.''R-1 Grand Prix'' 2016 and 2017 Ikezaki's performance in ''R-1 Grand Prix'' propelled him to popularity as he has been appearing frequently on television since 2016. He was already gaining traction before that, with a decent number of appearances on various comedy focus programs.

References

External links

Watanabe Entertainment Official Profile

Official Blog
- Livedoor * Japanese comedians People from Kagoshima Prefecture People from Kanoya, Kagoshima 1981 births Living people {{Japan-bio-stub