Here is an episode of a well-known Japanese late night TV show, called Shikujiri Sensei (しくじり先生). The premise of the show is that celebrities come on as a Sensei and tell the class about where they have failed in their careers, and how not to do the same. Although I never make it to that part, because I am only watching the clips on YouTube, which are roughly the first 15 minutes of the show, which probably lasts an hour. So I never get to hear the advice. That’s okay. I don’t need it anyway, I’m just here for the Japanese.

I liked this episode a lot, with a famous entertainer, Ide Rakkyo, the founder of the nude act. I thought I would transcribe and translate the episode, about 15 minutes, for practice. But it was hard, I was averaging about an hour per minute of transcription (listening to the episode and recording what was said, and I had a lot of help, from the YouTube auto-subtitle and the actual show putting up subtitles at times) and so I ended up just settling for five minutes of the episode so that I didn’t spend 20 hours on this little project.

START

Wakabayashi: “Here is today’s Failure Sensei. Welcome!”

Applause

Ide Rakkyo loses his clothes

Sawabe: “So fast! So fast!”

Ide Rakkyo: “I’ve done my work for the day, so I’ll go home now.”

Everyone: “Sensei, class! Class!”

Sawabe: “The fastest anyone has ever gotten into their underwear.”

Wakabayashi: “Amazing, wow.”

Ide Rakkyo starts putting clothes back on

Ijyuuin: “And so calm in getting dressed, of course. We would expect nothing less.”

Yoshimura: “I’m so happy.”

Wakabayashi: “Yoshimura, you must be happy.”

Yoshimura: “Of course, absolutely. He is the peak of my lineage. There’s no doubt about it!”

Ide Rakkyo: “Hello, I am Ide Rakkyo from Takeshi’s Army. Thank you for having me here today.”

Ide Rakkyo: “But I think there may be some people here who don’t know about me.”

Shot of Fukutome blank-faced

Wakabayashi: “What, really?”

Sawabe: “You don’t know him?”

Yoshimura: “Why?”

Moriwaki: “But, I asked my dad. I said that I would be working with Ide Rakkyou tomorrow, and my dad replied, ‘He’s someone who gets naked immediately.’”

Ide Rakkyo: “Well, that happened right away.”

Sawabe: “It was proved immediately.”

Moriwaki: “Really!”

Wakabayashi: “Your dad is a prophet.”

Yoshimura: “He’s not a prophet!”

Ide Rakkyo: “Well, first let me introduce you to my profile. Please open your textbook to page 4.”

Ijyuuin: “Okay.”

Ide Rakkyo: “My real name is Ide Hiroshi. Hiroshi is written as Hakase. It’s a good name isn’t it. Yes.”

Ide Rakkyo: “I’m from Kumamoto, and I’m 66. I’ve become quite an old man, now.”

Wakabayashi: “And you’re still doing that at 66, amazing…”

Ide Rakkyo: “That’s right.”

Ide Rakkyo: “My special skill is short-distance running.”

Sawabe: “You were so fast! The fastest in the entertainment industry.”

Ide Rakkyo: “My fastest time was, for the 100 meter dash, 10.89 seconds.”

Moriwaki: “10 seconds!”

Ide Rakkyo: “Yes. As for stripping down, about 2.5.”

Everyone laughs and says, “That’s fast.”

Sawabe: “The world record.”

Wakabayashi: “It’s still hasn’t been beaten.”

Yoshimura: “So fast.”

Sawabe: “Because nobody else is doing it.”

Ijyuuin: “Really, nobody else is taking their clothes off.”

Ide Rakkyo: “Well then, there were originally 10 members in Takeshi’s Army. Of those ten members, Sono Manma Higashi was also a member of the army.”

Wakabayashi: “Yes.”

Sawabe: “Mr. Higashi was the youngest, wasn’t he?”

Ide Rakkyo: “That’s right, that’s right.”

Ide Rakkyo: “Mr. Takeshi created all of our stage names. Takeshi kun. Mr. Beat Takeshi.”

Ide Rakkyo: “We had gone to an Izakaya, they brought us some edamame, and Takeshi said, ‘Oh, you’re Tsumami Edamame’, and in that way it was decided.”

Morwaki: “Really? So that’s how it happened.”

Ide Rakkyo: “Then next, sometimes they brought rakkyou (onions), and Takeshi said, ‘Hey Ide, you look like rakkyou, so you’ll be Ide Rakkyou.’”

Wakabayashi: “Wow.”

Ide Rakkyo: “If it had been ninniku (garlic), these days I would be called Ide Ninniku instead.”

Ide Rakkyo: “Well, that’s me, but in the entertainment world, I was called this. It’s on the next page.”

Ide Rakkyo: “The founder of the naked act.”

Moriwaki: “Amazing!”

Fukutome: “That’s really amazing.”

Ide Rakkyo: “At this time there are now many naked acts.”

Ijyuuin: “Many.”

Ide Rakkyo: “Yes, there are many. But, they wear swim trunks, or cover themselves with a plate. I was covered with pixels.”

Sawabe: “Right. On the scene, you were naked.”

Yoshimura: “That’s right, you were exposed.”

Moriwaki: “Wait, even your special place?”

Ide Rakkyo: “I was usually naked, completely stark naked.”

Everyone laughs

Ide Rakkyo: “Well, it wasn’t a live broadcast. Of course.”

Ide Rakkyo: “I was told to roll a snowman, I was completely stark naked, and had set my clothes down on the ground. My socks, pants, a sweater, and I was pushing the snowman, and when I went to go put my clothes back on, they were all frozen stiff, and I couldn’t wear them again!”

Moriwaki: “How terrible!”

Ide Rakkyo: “Like this, I performed in some severe locations.”

Yoshimura: “So cool.”

Ide Rakkyo: “So, that’s me, and I have committed some failures. On the next page.”

Sawabe: “Failures?”

Ide Rakkyo: “Getting completely naked without reading the room, and pissing off big names in the acting world.”

Everybody laughs

Ide Rakkyo: “Getting naked in front of the audience many times, and being reported to the police.”

Ide Rakkyo: “Getting naked at my daughter’s wedding and causing an outrage.”

Moriwaki: “No!!!!”

Wakabayashi: “Right, because they call it, ‘Virgin Road’.”

Fukutome: “Why did you think you could do that?”

Sawabe busts out laughing

Ide Rakkyo: “There were less rules at that time, so I got into trouble.”

Wakabayashi: “That’s it, right.”

Ide Rakkyo: “Yes. Like this, if I did this now, it would be considered Super Sexual Harrassment.”

Everyone laughs

Ijyuuin: “Super Sexual Harrassment.”

Wakabayashi: “A Super Sexual Harrassment actor.”

Moriwaki: “That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

Yoshimura: “You say that but, at that time it was still Super Sexual Harrassment!”

Sawabe: “The times haven’t changed.”

Yoshimura: “They haven’t changed.”

Ide Rakkyo: “This time again, if we try to look back over my life, I think there may be some things that we can learn from. With this in mind, I’ll try and tell you about some of the failures I’ve committed with my naked act. And I would like to tell you about what I’ve learned from being in Takeshi’s Army.”

Ijyuuin: “We are really going to learn from this.”

Moriwaki: “I want to hear it.”

Narrator: “While prioritizing getting laughs, Ide Rakkyo had a number of failures with his naked act. First, let’s have a lesson about Rakkyou entering Takeshi’s Army, and the reason he started doing his naked act.”

Ide Rakkyo: “These days I am only seen as being a naked act, but 44 years ago, when I was 22 years old, I was scouted to be used in the entertainment industry for another act. That act is on the next page.”

Ide Rakkyo: “‘An impersonator repeatedly creating explosive laughter.’ Originally I was an impersonator.”

Ijyuuin: “He was an impersonator in the orthodox way.”

Yoshimura: “Is that so?”

…continues