Comedian Sekai no Nabeatsu introduces Softbank’s new mobile handset.
PHOTO BY TARO FUJIMOTO

Softbank to launch online comedian competition

Sunday 01st February, 04:05 AM JST

By Taro Fujimoto

TOKYO —

Softbank Corp will launch an online comedian competition called “S-1 Battle” from March 1, in which professional comedians can show their routine via short movies downloadable from mobile handsets. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son said that Softbank users will be able to vote on their choice of best act. The monthly winner will be given 10 million yen and the annual winner 100 million yen, according to the company.

Comedian Hiroshi Shinagawa joked: “I’ll have to buy a lot of Softbank’s mobile phones to vote for myself. It may be better to spend 10 million yen to make new contracts with Softbank.” He was one of 15 popular comedians from the Yoshimoto Agency, including King Kong, Football Hour, License, Robert, London Boots, Sekai no Nabeatsu and Harumi Edo, who were on hand to help Softbank launch nine new handsets last week.

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6 Comments

Mark_McCracken at 05:11 AM JST - 1st February

The monthly winner will be given 10 billion yen and the annual winner 100 billion yen, according to the company.

LOL. Something tells me Softbank won't be giving away over two billion US dollars for an advertising campaign. Hard to tell who made the mistake, Softbank's PR department or Taro Fujimoto. Somewhere, common sense is in short supply.
google_yahoo at 05:07 PM JST - 1st February

100Billion Yen > 1 billion dollar. Seems to be a typing error. It should be 100 million
Mark_McCracken at 06:12 PM JST - 1st February

Seems to be a typing error.

Typing errors don't happen three times. This is just bad writing.
Yelnats at 03:39 PM JST - 2nd February

I never saw a funny comedian in this country. I have seen a lot of screaming people on the tube with canned laughter, or fake talento laughter.
saborichan at 04:43 PM JST - 2nd February

There are some laughs from them occasionally. But I can only see the same schtick a couple times.
gogogo at 02:34 AM JST - 7th February

It's a sham, all the stooges I mean "comedian's" all come from the 1 management agency so how is that fare?