Maesetsu! Opening Act (まえせつ！)

I wish... I was in front of that mic.

I want to make everyone laugh, too!

Well, folks, things are slowly heating up

here on the main stage!

Your patience has been abbre-- a, a- ppreciated.

Moving on. We have guests as our next act.

They're two comedy duos who are also Shoka-Yono alums.

Tokonatsu and RDeco are here!

Take it away!

Thank you so much!

Your airband rocks!

Play another song!

Encore!

Okay. Then how about this?

I'd like to do a fun impression for you all!

Wha--? Mafuyu.

This is Konata Izumi doing her Shin-chan,

but as a train announcer!

"Please don't rush when entering the train."

Here they go.

"The doors are closing."

Huh?

My goodness.

They liked our airband,

but they didn't like my impression.

I don't know how to feel.

Well, I can't say I recall that routine of yours

ever landing with a crowd.

Ah... Fubuki, now you're rubbing salt in the wound!

Out of all the bits you could've done, you chose that one?

Oh, it was just the sudden shift

from a girls' air band to that impression.

I kind of get the sense that it was quite a shock

to the audience.

Still, I thought we'd be doing comedy,

not something like this.

I certainly never expected us to be here

performing in an air band. We're comedians after all.

Hey, sis! Hi, girls!

Hey there, Fuyu!

Oh, it's Manatsu and Kanae!

Manatsu!

H-Huh? Wha... What?

Manatsu! This whole thing is your fault!

And then I'll react here before you're done talking.

Mm. Great.

And then that's when I'll pile on with another gag.

I wonder if it would be better to put a little pause in there.

How was that timing?

Nope! Too long.

--Okay. --

--Huh? --

Your phone's ringing.

Yeah.

It's Manatsu.

Hey there, sis, is something up?

I need some help, Sis!

Can Tokonatsu do me a huge favor?

Huh?

You two graduated from Shoka-Yono,

so you probably know this already

but our school's culture festival is starting today.

Oh, right. It is that time of year.

Oh, yeah, it sure is.

So? What's up?

The thing is...

I'm the stage manager, and some performers

in today's afternoon act just got rushed to the hospital!

I'm going crazy right now trying to find someone

to fill their spot!

Uh, wha...?

It's gonna be the afternoon in like no time!

But you know, this could be the perfect chance...

...to try out that new act of ours.

Mm.

We'll do it!

You will? The only thing is--

We've gotta call Rin and Nayuta!

And since you needed some help to fill in the time

you decided to recruit the two of us

and got us mixed up in all this.

Don't say it like it was my fault!

Manatsu's the one who made me do it!

That isn't true at all!

I was trying to explain the whole situation to you,

but you hung up on me before I could

tell you everything!

Man, you totally jumped the gun, didn't you?

Come on, girls, why don't we all just settle down a bit.

Whatever the case may be,

I still thought it was super fun. Didn't you?

Really?

Okay, folks, your patience is appreciated!

This next duo won the last high-school comedy contest

and have been the hottest guests on TV.

Please welcome the pride of Shoka-Yono High...

JK Cool: Eru Kusaba and Arashi Waraino!

Winners of the high-school comedy contest, huh?

Come to think of it,

I hear that they're signed with Yoshimoto Kogyo now.

What? Even though both those girls are still in high school?

They are rising new stars.

They were featured in all sorts of magazines recently.

I guess we should've just stuck

with the air band after all.

Here we go. Mafuyu's running her mouth again.

Uhh, Mafuyu what were you saying?

'Cause we'll get compared to them.

Oh.

Our gags, punchlines, tempo.

If their comedy outshines ours,

I'm gonna feel even more down. Oh!

Hey, should we go up on stage again with that air band thing?

Honestly, Mafuyu. Forget feeling down!

You're practically subterranean with negativity!

But you know, the four of you really saved us today,

and that's the truth.

So once again, from the bottom of our hearts...

Thank you so much for your help!

The next time you're here,

it'll be as the comedy duos Tokonatsu and RDeco.

We'll be sure to give you a proper invite!

Mm!

The air band killed,

and my bit bombed. This sucks.

You're still on that?

Changing the mood with a one-off gag

is a hard thing to do-- that isn't surprising.

You have to set it up better than that.

Exactly. Just think about how the crowd was earlier;

we had them all pumped up with that air band act of ours.

hen you went and shoved that gag in from out of nowhere.

Read the atmosphere.

It wasn't a light read.

I think that the audience didn't really know how

to react to that sudden shift in tone.

Hmm.

So, if we were talking desserts you wouldn't want to have

a xiaolongbao instead of mochi in your sweet-bean soup.

Is that it?

That's a good analogy!

Mm. I dunno if that's what it was like.

Hmm.

I think I'd actually like to give that a taste.

You can. We serve it.

What?

You do?

The secret menu's nuts! What don't they have here?

That flat-udon-and- sweet-bean-paste Napolitan

was truly horrifying.

Though I have to admit it had a depth of flavor all its own.

Mm-hm.

Hey, come to think of it,

didn't you two graduate from Shoka-Yono High?

Yeah.

And in all your years there,

you never once went on stage for the culture festival?

No, we never got the chance to.

Heh. Unfortunately not.

Fubuki and I only paired up three years ago.

It was during our second year of high school.

It's our anti-smoking week!

Rock 'n' roll!

Rock 'n' roll.

Shake it up, baby, now.

We used to just mess around between classes

with little gags and stuff,

but all our classmates thought we were really funny.

So, we rolled with it and teamed up. And then...

Oh! Wait I remember now.

Huh? What?

Now that I think about it, that gag...

"Please don't rush when entering the train."

Here they go. Pshh. Pshh.

Not to sound like a broken record,

but it always bombed back then, too.

Every time she did it, there wasn't even a chuckle.

I guess that is how things kinda went.

Aw, I could've done any bit, why'd I do that one?

I wonder if being back at Shoka-Yono High

just made my muscle memory kick in or something.

Hey, I think this story's getting off-track.

So, what happened next?

You got caught up in the moment, formed a duo, and then...

Right. We weren't getting caught up in things though.

Just kinda giving in to it all.

Then we got into the High-School Comedy Contest.

Only as far as the preliminaries, though.

We lost, but it's because we got cut

that we felt like there's no way we could

let things end with that.

And if we had given up on comedy back then,