While working as a solo comedian, I also write tanka. My YouTube post "Explaining the taste of tap water" became a hot topic, and I published a book based on it in November 2024. Recently, I've been introduced more and more as a poet and writer, but until I became a comedian, I had no idea that I was a "word specialist." In fact, when I was in college, I was in the a cappella student club "Choco Crunch" (an official student club), where I sang, did beatboxing, and spent my time "non-textually." So now, I feel like I'm finally starting to speak baby talk, as if to fill that void, and I'm involved with words.

I listened to it as if it were my own story (laughs). The words of tanka are drawn out precisely because of the "5-7-5-7-7" format. Of course, I am the one who writes them, but I think of them as "my words being called out by the tanka." The format deepens my love for tanka, and I feel like the words are placed in the communication between the tanka and myself.

Wow, that's amazing! I can certainly hear it. If I had told Hagiwara Sakutaro (the poet) about it, he would have cried tears of joy. He wrote that Japanese poetry is difficult to rhyme, so it's hard to express verbosity, but if you work on your pronunciation like in rap, there are infinite possibilities.

In Japanese Bon Odori, you keep the rhythm in your head, like "tatan ga tan." That's close to the sense of rhyming at breaks and punchlines that KEN mentioned, and I think Japanese people tend to feel comfortable with "breaks here." In the same way, in comedy communication, it's more effective if you know exactly where the punch line is going to be, rather than always saying funny things. Sometimes it's easier to get the message across if 90 of them are normal words and only the last 10 are funny, rather than lining up 100 funny words.

Wow, I totally get it! We often have expectations when we listen, so unless you can surprise us in a good way, it's not interesting. But you can't make a sudden leap, so you have to subtly lay the foundation. In that sense, I think the structure of the story is very important. The same goes for presentations and papers. Furthermore, in terms of performance, the "sound" itself, for example, leaving a short pause in the words or adding emphasis, is also important in relation to the structure. I think students should be aware of these things too.

I can totally understand that feeling. In my case, I think the most important thing to "communicate" is to be naked. I have the impression that words that are conscious of "I want to say this" or "I want people to think this" don't get the message across very well.

I really sympathized with what KEN said about the importance of the context and background of "Thank you, Mom." That's because I think the end goal of "valuing words and putting them into words" is similar to "deodorization." It's about "how to remove the smell from your words." However, I think the challenge is the opposite: "how to say words that have your own smell attached to them."​

Even when expressing gratitude to one's mother, for example, "I put frozen rice in the miso soup bowl and it broke when I put it in the microwave," there is a personal smell attached to such a unique episode. If one is aware of that smell and can put it into words, it will be easier to convey it as "one's own words."

What I would say to people who are struggling with words is to "make the most of your secret account." On your main account, you post things like "I have a live show today. Please come," and on your secret account, you write things you can't say in public, like "I don't really want to go, but I decided to because the fee is good." I think that knowing what you really feel but can't say in public, in other words, the smell of yourself that you don't want others to smell, is actually something that you shouldn't throw away when dealing with words.

I also think that editing skills are important. In my own words, it is the "ability to disengage words." When you eat something salty, it is easy to convey if you say, "It tastes like the salt on the rocks on the beach." But wouldn't it be more surprising if you disengaged all the words and said, "It tastes like rocks"? If you think that what you actually felt was "the taste of rocks," try saying it as it is without adding any unnecessary explanation. Tanka, with its 31-syllable constraint, is a treasure trove of ways to disengage words, so I like to think of it as input, coming into contact with such words and getting rid of the fear of disengaging words.

I really empathize with what you two have said. It is often said that vocabulary is important, but in fact, what is even more important is the "ability to construct expressions." In order to acquire such abilities, I think that Geronimo and KEN always consciously or unconsciously have an analytical perspective in their daily lives, such as trying to use a metaphor that is a little distant, trying to express something in a synesthetic way with a different sense, or thinking about which expression is better than this other expression. I feel that such "keeping your antennae up to think about expressions" is extremely important not only in Japanese language studies, but also in your activities in the entertainment industry and in everyday communication with students.

I would also like to pay attention to my own "smell," or how I am making mistakes and misunderstandings. For example, the stars in the night sky already exist, but it is humans who have connected the arrangement of stars into "constellations." Even though "Scorpio" does not actually have the shape of a scorpion at all, the act of drawing a "constellation" there shows the human element. So I think it would be better to leave the efficient task of connecting the arrangement of stars with straight lines to AI, and aim for sentences and a style of writing that draws one's own "constellation."​

In his book "My First Tanka," poet Hiromu Homura says that if Ami Hiraoka's tanka "We're cute as we line up in front of the Great Buddha to take a photo" is rewritten to "We're so small as we take a photo in front of the Great Buddha," the poetic value is instantly lost. "Very small" is a word that conveys social value, and it removes the element of conveying one's own preconceptions and feelings. Nowadays, when you try to write what you actually think, it tends to be deodorized by AI-like correct Japanese, but I think that writing poetry is the act of consciously trying to add a scent without being swayed by that.

The college years are a time of deodorization, as they are often referred to as the "university debut" or "becoming more sophisticated." It's good to become more sophisticated and your body to become more socially relevant, but by asking yourself, "What is it about my smell that still doesn't go away?" I think you can get closer to the root of the "indescribable things" that are bothering you. So, "don't let your words become deodorized as well." That's my message.

I believe that the more you output, the better your output will be. I also want you to develop a love for expression. It's okay to get down to it, but I want you to enjoy expressing yourself. It's also important to be exposed to a variety of forms of expression and broaden yourself. In order to break the mold, it's necessary to have a certain degree of mastery of various forms. Furthermore, it will surely be helpful to take a moment to think about your words analytically. During your precious student years, learn and take on a wide range of challenges, and enjoy a variety of forms of expression and your expressive self to the fullest.