Manzai: Team Comedy in Japan’s Entertainment Industry (2006). Stocker, Joel. Ed. Milner Davis, Jessica. Link

An overview of the history of manzai. Although it’s sort of unsurprising, I was still surprised at how much the development of manzai centered on the Kansai area right from the 1900s. The rise and dominance of Yoshimoto and the 1930s development of the dialogue-centric modern shabekuri manzai are also historically very much tied together. There are 13 pages in the file and unfortunately Downtown only comes in on pages 9 and 10 (I think they deserve more material :)). The author excerpts part of their free talk from Gaki’s episode #428 that was aired on August 9, 1998 (use this to find the raw episode if you’re interested). I found this part by the author the most cool to read as it notes some of the things that Downtown is known to have pioneered in Japanese comedy (a slower-paced, relaxed style of manzai and the coupling of comedians and other entertainers, like singers, on the same show):