[ATTENDED: April 9, 2026] Atsuko Okatsuka
I had not heard of Atsuko Okatsuka when this show was announced (with the striking image to the right).
I have been going to a lot of comedians this year and reading the blurb and the fact that it was so close I thought it might be worth checking her out. After buying the tickets, I watched some of her special on TV and wasn’t that excited by the opening moments. But since I didn’t know if this was the routine she was going to do, I didn’t watch anymore.
So I wasn’t that excited going in. And it turned out that my wife had a commitment that she couldn’t get out of. So I almost stayed home. But again, it was close, so I went.
And I’m so glad I did, because she was hilarious.
She started with a routine about her playing a video game in which you own restaurants. I didn’t think this could be an extended riff, but it was and each level of the joke made it funnier. From the fact that she is very very busy (she has so many restaurants) to the part where she is making so much money (in the game) but losing so much money (in real life) as she upgrades. To how her husband found out about her spending on the games (snitch accountant) to a hilarious joke about her caveman cafe and the dinosaur that runs it with her. Any paleontologists in the audience?
She spun this off into a series of jokes about how having a phone and doomscrolling is very healthy because otherwise you are left alone with your own thoughts!
I really enjoyed her take on depression commercials–do you really want to be like the people in the “after” scenes? I really enjoyed the sequence (and the big payoff at the end) about the white man who is excellent at kendo. She explained that this man has trained for years and is really impressive. At first she thought it was racist, but realized that he is so sincere and devoted that it is honoring rather than appropriating. Although she acknowledged that if he hurt himself and someone asked her to finish the routine, THAT would be racist.
The only person who is more Japanese than this man is her father, who is the quintessential Japanese man. She went to visit him and that’s when she learned she had a brother (from her father’s first marriage). She was unsure if she wanted to meet him, but when she did and he said, do you want to pretend po be cats while waiting online, that she knew she’d found a kindred spirit.
She crammed so much good material into an hour. It was a great set. At the end she did a brief Q&A which turned into a fan fest of people who went to the show wearing a wig that looked like her hair. I had no idea this was a thing. Apparently it is. And she loves it.
I’m sorry my wife couldn’t make it, but I’m really glad I went.
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