I want to adapt these for the school festival! A roundup of comedians’ manzai, sketch comedy, and one-liner gags
Many students are probably thinking about putting on a comedy show as an attraction for their school cultural festival.
It sounds fun to perform a one-liner, do a manzai routine or a sketch, and make everyone laugh by showing your material on stage! But the tricky part is deciding what kind of material to perform.
It would be great if you could create your own original material, but that’s not so easy.
That’s why we recommend imitating or arranging popular comedians’ routines and performing those! In this article, we’ll introduce recommended bits from popular comedians—whether manzai, sketches, or one-liners—without limiting the format.
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I want to adapt these for the school festival! A roundup of comedians’ manzai, skits, and one-liner gags (41–50)
COWCOW
COWCOW’s Atarimae Taiso (“Obvious Things Gymnastics”) presents everyday, taken-for-granted moments around us set to a distinctive melody and coordinated body movements.
Because it progresses with short phrases and easy-to-understand motions, if you arrange it for a school festival, incorporating class-specific jokes or school-only “relatable moments” will spark shared laughter.
For example, using concrete lines like “Break time ends way too fast” or “Someone doodled on the blackboard” will bring the audience’s reactions much closer.
The choreography can be freely adapted, and the more exaggerated the movements, the more the venue will heat up.
Performing it as a group creates a sense of unity, making it a skit that spreads smiles with its light, upbeat rhythm.
I want to adapt these for the school festival! A collection of manzai, skits, and one-shot gags by comedians (51–60)
koi (nishikigoi)
This is a NISHIKIGOI sketch with an impressive structure: what looks like a serious moment—a formal greeting for a marriage—gradually unfolds into an exchange that makes you laugh in spite of yourself.
Although the characters are supposed to ask politely over and over, a string of slightly off-kilter remarks keeps coming, and the laughs vary greatly depending on the performers’ facial expressions and tone of voice.
For a school festival, you can swap roles or change the setting to teachers and students to create an arrangement only you can pull off.
Because the structure alternates between tension and release, the key to success is to keep delivering the silly lines with a straight face.
The more the distinctive back-and-forth is repeated, the more the audience is gently enveloped in laughter.
It’s a piece packed with the fun of exploiting a comedy template—and then breaking it.
Nakagawa family
A manzai routine in the Nakagawake impersonation style that recreates a middle-aged Kansai man you could totally run into in everyday life.
It has that irresistible charm where anyone watching goes, “I know a guy like that!” The lines feel like things you’d really overhear on a train or in town, and the way the brothers handle timing is a highlight—spot-on observational detail balanced with sharp tsukkomi is the key.
If you’re doing it at a school festival, mix in local ‘that’s so true’ material or mimic the way a classmate talks like an old dude to get the crowd going.
The distinctive intonation and movements are easy to copy, and the more the performers get creative, the wider the possibilities become—that’s the beauty of this bit.
Built around classic ‘relatable’ humor, it’s a structure you can rely on to land laughs steadily on stage.
plover
This is a Chidori sketch where the catchphrase “Kuse ga tsuyoi!” (“What a strong quirk!” / “That’s so extra!”) becomes the comedic anchor as the characters’ actions and lines veer further and further off course.
It picks up everyday scenes, but the characters and setups are exaggerated, so normal interactions spiral into absurdity—and that escalation becomes the hook.
If you’re performing it at a school festival, you can hype it up by amplifying your classmates’ traits and turning them into gloriously quirky characters to get real crowd energy.
The key is the rhythm between the boke and tsukkomi, so just being mindful of timing and pauses can change the quality of the laughs.
The material is easy to adapt, which makes it appealing—you can craft a truly original rendition of your own.
It’s a unique piece that really pops on stage.
Mama Tart
Mamatart, who also made it to the semifinals of the M-1 Grand Prix 2022, is known for the instantly funny presence of Ototsuru Himan, the boke, whose distinctive appearance is a highlight.
Their strength lies in weaving gags that make use of Himan’s look into a classic manzai structure.
They transform the trait of obesity—which could carry negative connotations—into positive, relatable humor.
By turning his own appearance into laughs to the fullest, they’re a duo that can give courage to people with insecurities.
It’s material that people who are overweight can easily relate to, and it would also be interesting to adapt the bits to other kinds of appearances.
Ranjatai
Episodes featuring Ranjatai—such as their appearance on the Kansai late-night show “Aiseki Shokudō” and on “Downtown DX” in the segment “A New Era Arrives!? Underground Comedian Special!!”—are regarded as legendary.
One of Ranjatai’s charms is that their setups and developments are so bizarre that “sometimes you just can’t keep up!” Highly recommended bits include “the convenience store falling from the sky” and “the cat entering the body.” In any case, find a partner who can keep the high energy going for three straight minutes!
Nakagōn Hakukō
The comedy duo Nagon, made up of the yankee-style boke Sachiko Usuyuki and the tsukkomi Norikatsu Abe, is popular for a routine where Usuyuki pretends to smoke while roasting different neighborhoods.
Instead of copying the bit word-for-word, we recommend mimicking the style and using your own school’s town as the subject! Among students, go for slightly roasty jokes that make people think, “So true,” and grab some laughs.
For visitors considering enrolling who came to see the school festival, it’s also a great way to show what the school is like and what the surrounding area feels like!
