ゲストは佐藤栞里さん！罰ゲーム回避のコーナーも・・・

Cooking Rice on Set: Her Portable Rice Cooker Life

A listener's email blew the lid off Shiori's most unusual habit: she carries a bento-box-sized portable rice cooker to every work location along with Koshihikari rice given to her by her grandfather. The rice travels unwashed in a plastic bag; when she arrives on set she rinses it at a tap, loads it into the cooker, and about ten minutes later has a bowl of piping-hot freshly cooked rice.

"Convenience stores do sell plain rice, but freshly cooked rice just tastes sweeter," she explained. Her commitment goes further still — even when a packed lunch comes with rice, she will cook an extra pot because she wants warm rice alongside her side dishes. The studio was visibly taken aback. Talk of her passion for food extended to a love of standing-bar soba restaurants, setting the tone for a conversation driven throughout by her enthusiasm for eating.

When the subject of staying in shape came up, she admitted she has been doing Pilates once or twice a week. Her body is still too stiff for the machines, so for now sessions are one-on-one stretching and movement work with an instructor. She said she first became conscious of it after turning 30.

Shitara's Passionate Recommendation: Chindatsu Soba (珍達そば), Chichibu's Legendary Ramen

A listener's email about Chichibu (秩父) food gave Shitara the opening he needed to launch into an enthusiastic account of Chindatsu Soba, a ramen shop in Chichibu, Saitama, that he says "every single staff member has been to." The bowl features thin noodles — close to Hakata-style — buried under a mountain of green onion and julienned pork, finished with sesame oil in a soy-sauce broth; miso is also on the menu. Shitara always orders the meltingly soft toro chashu as a side dish, and there are gyoza too.

The catch is the queue. Normal waits run two to three hours, weekday or weekend, without exception. Getting there before the restaurant opens for its first seating can bring that down to thirty minutes to an hour, and on a fortunate day you might slip in within twenty. Shitara pulled out a black-and-white photo his daughter had taken of the shop, and Shiori lit up: "Oh wow, that looks absolutely incredible!" She immediately declared herself "the type who will queue for good food" and the two made a firm promise to go together as a family of three. The popular route is the Seibu Chichibu Line's Red Arrow (レッドアロー) limited express, and among people in their circle it has become standard practice to knock out both Chindatsu Soba and Mitsumine Jinja (三峯神社) in a single day.

Why She Keeps Returning to Mitsumine Jinja — The Moment She Passed Through the Torii

From the Chichibu conversation it was a natural step to Mitsumine Jinja. Shiori prefaced her story by saying she had never in her life felt anything spiritual — but when she walked through the torii gate at Mitsumine Jinja, all sound cut out completely. The voices of people she had been hearing a moment before went entirely silent, and she felt something like a river flowing through her body. That experience was enough: she has been visiting regularly ever since.

Shitara pointed out that the shrine sits at roughly 2,000 metres altitude, which makes physical changes to hearing more likely, while also agreeing that the place simply feels sacred. Other details emerged: the feeling of "a wolf following you" after you leave; the sense of "coming home" when you return a year later. The shrine's white amulets, once distributed only on the first of each month in limited quantities, became so sought-after that traffic on the approach road seized up and distribution has since been suspended — yet both Shitara and Shiori said they already own one. The shrine has a devoted following among comedians; Nobu-san (ノブさん) and Yamacha (山ちゃん) are among those who have visited multiple times.

Guitar on Stage for the First Time — Practicing in Tears Every Day

Shiori announced that on Sunday, November 2, she will hold her 15th anniversary event at Shibuya LOVES, a brand-new venue in Shibuya near NHK that opened this year. Advance tickets were on sale until 11:59 p.m. on the night of broadcast. Fellow comedian guests include Tonikaku Akarui Yasumura (とにかく明るい安村) and Yokoyama Natsuko (横山夏子), who debuted around the same time as Shiori.

The centrepiece of the show is Shiori performing guitar as a full member of Zūkaraderu, the band she loves. She started from almost zero, and she confessed she has been practicing every day in tears. "I just can't get better," she said, though she framed the whole thing positively: "An event this big may never come around again in my life." Nudged by Shitara, she also let slip that a singing segment is quietly in the works. She described the whole event as her way of repaying the fans who have supported her for fifteen years.