is a Japanese

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 ...

artist, singer and actor. He is best known as a member of

Tunnels A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube constr ...

and

Yaen Yaen (野猿, "Wild Monkey") was a Japanese pop group composed of Takaaki Ishibashi and Noritake Kinashi of the comedy duo The Tunnels, and nine staff members from their television variety show '' The Tunnels' Thanks to Everyone''. From 1998 t ...

with his partner

Noritake Kinashi is a Japanese comedian, actor, singer and artist. He is the short member of the comedy duo Tunnels, with whom he was a member of the pop group Yaen. His partner is Takaaki Ishibashi. He is the executive vice president of the entertainment office ...

Early life and family

Born in

Katsushika is a special ward located in Tokyo, Japan. The ward calls itself Katsushika City in English. As of May 1, 2015, the ward has an estimated population of 444,356, and a population density of 12,770 people per km². The total area is 34.80 ...

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 ...

, Japan, Ishibashi moved to Narimasu,

Itabashi is a special ward located in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. In English, it calls itself Itabashi City. Itabashi has sister-city relations with Burlington, Ontario, in Canada; Shijingshan District of Beijing in the People's Republic of China; and ...

after his father's bankruptcy in his first grade at an elementary school. He attended Teikyo Junior & Senior High School. In November 1998, Ishibashi married actress . The couple later had three daughters. In July 2021, the couple announced they were divorcing. He has several nicknames such as "Taka-san" and "Taka-chan."

Career

Ishibashi is known for "teasing" music artists on his show

Utaban was a Japanese music variety show, broadcast weekly from October 15, 1996 until March 23, 2010 on TBS. The name of the show is an abbreviation of , meaning "music program". A special version of the show, running for two hours, was occasionally ai ...

alongside co-host

Masahiro Nakai is a Japanese television host, actor, news presenter, radio personality. He was the leader of the now defunct boy band SMAP, which had been the best-selling boy band in Asia. While working as a member of a boy band, he worked extensively as a te ...

, especially

Morning Musume , formerly simply and colloquially referred to as , are a Japanese girl group, holding the second highest overall single sales (of a female group) on the Oricon charts as of February 2012, with the Oricon record of most top ten singles with an ...

. He has over the years come up with different pet names for each member such as

Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...

for or Ka-san for . This is apparently done purely for humor, based on comments made regarding Takaaki by his "victims," and in many cases these taunts actually increase the marketing "buzz" surrounding the artists. Particularly well known is Ishibashi's fascination with accusing of anything from simple hideousness, to outright alien or supernatural evil, which started back when the group debuted. Numerous CG images will depict her as a hag or

Kappa Kappa (uppercase Κ, lowercase κ or cursive ; el, κάππα, ''káppa'') is the 10th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless velar plosive sound in Ancient and Modern Greek. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value o ...

or show her in some maniacal facial expression while doing the activities she is speaking of in the interview. Both Kei and her mother apparently credit this humorous "abuse" with Kei's popularity as a member. Ishibashi was also criticised in 2017 when he revived a 30-year-old character that played on homophobic stereotypes. He is also an

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 ...

known for playing Isuro Tanaka in the film ''

Major League II ''Major League II'' is a 1994 American sports comedy film and sequel to the 1989 film '' Major League'' and it is the second installment in the ''Major League'' film series. The film stars most of the same cast from the original, including Charl ...

'' and Taka Tanaka in '' Major League: Back to the Minors.'' Ishibashi is a member of the Japanese vocal group

Yazima Beauty Salon is a Japanese vocal group consisting of DJ Ozma and the owarai group Tunnels in character and in drag depicting a group of women they found scouting for talent in Las Vegas, Nevada. The group is on the Avex label. Members ;: The 36-year-old mat ...

References

External links

* 1961 births Japanese male film actors Japanese impressionists (entertainers) Living people {{film-actor-stub