シーズン22-12「ご利益」

The Mango 'Petal Cut' Problem

In the listener segment 'Is It Just Me Who Thinks This?' (これって思うの私だけ), a listener called 'Taberu Yoghurt' made the case: mangoes are the only fruit allowed to compete with a fancy petal cut — the lattice-scored, fanned-out presentation — while apples and oranges show up having done nothing more than get sliced. The charge: that's not a fair fight. One host pushed back, saying it simply looks the most appetizing, though both conceded the large pit in the centre makes a clean cross-section impossible anyway. The conversation drifted to accordion-cut beef tongue, with one host approving of the grid scoring but finding the tsuke-zuke style too 'design-y' to feel satisfying. The segment ended with a shared wish for the yakiniku chain Negishi (ネギシ) to come to them.

The Earphone-at-Home Paradox

Triggered by a post from listener 'Miyakonai Inko,' the hosts picked apart why earphones feel great outside yet unbearable the moment you walk through your own front door. One host's diagnosis was precise: the instant the door closes, losing the ambient sounds of home life becomes the dominant downside, outweighing the music. The other host said he has never been comfortable with earphones and relies on ambient sound pass-through mode when he goes out, switching to phone speakers or headphones while cooking at home. The broader aversion to wearing devices against the body — the same reason he skips wearing a watch — came up, as did a specific habit he called 'lighting-up eating' (照らし食い): illuminating his food with his phone screen while eating in the dark on the move.

King of Conte 2026 and the ¥1,000 Blessing Jinx

Jeradon took the King of Conte 2026 title as the 19th champion with a combined first-round and final score of 671 points; runner-up was Kaerudo (カエル亭). Reiwa Roman had been co-running a YouTube channel with Jeradon's Nishimoto and had cheered him on before the final.

The episode's centrepiece was the birth of a perfect jinx. Some time ago, Katamari of Kuuki Kaidan (空気階段の塊) had handed Reiwa Roman ¥1,000 as a good-luck offering — 'because it worked out' — and then won. When the hosts relayed that story to Nishimoto, he too handed over ¥1,000, and then he too won. Two data points, zero exceptions: both hosts declared the jinx officially established. The fantasy quickly escalated: if all roughly 10,000 acts entering M-1 each donated ¥1,000, the haul would be ¥20 million — though the bit collapsed with the image of every non-winning act suing them into the ground. Also praised from the KOC final: a duo called Yahhoi (ヤッホイ) who announced their name mid-act, and Tontsukatan's (トンツカタン) sketch in which Tontsukatan Morimoto (トンツカタン森本) appeared as a character inside his own group's routine — a move the hosts called 'revolutionary.'

Yokohama DeNA BayStars Reach the Japan Series

The BayStars clinched the pennant with four straight wins, setting up what looks like a rematch of the Japan Series from two years ago: Yokohama versus SoftBank. The hosts discussed how each team's roster had changed since then, including the departure of a specific foreign pitcher. Outfielder Kondo's YouTube channel 'Konchan Base' (こんちゃんベース) inspired an extended riff recasting the entire series as a sushi competition: every piece of baseball analysis was swapped one-for-one with sushi-chef analogies, SoftBank held home-ground advantage 'because Konchan Base is their turf,' and bolstering the pitching rotation became 'recruiting young talent who've been rolling rice since high school.'

New Corner 'Where's Grandma?' and the Return of Kemusta

The new segment 'Obāchan Doko?' (おばあちゃんどこ？) — 'Where's Grandma?' — has the hosts reading listener 'grandma moments' and then wondering aloud where that grandmother has gotten to. The debut batch included: a Yokk Moc (ヨクモック) cookie tin that turned out to be stuffed with Porinky (ポリンキー) crackers; a grandmother who described her grandchild as 'like a manju bun'; one who wrapped ants in aluminium foil and roasted them on the stove; a grandmother who bristles when celebrity guests downplay their academic credentials; and a grandmother with a katakana name. Then came a personal disclosure: Kuruma's grandmother is named Ryuko (竜子, リュウコ) because her great-grandmother had a strong preference for on'yomi character readings, and his younger brother is named Seiki (成輝), a name whose characters can also be read as 'sanity.' The segment closed with 'Where did the personal information go?'

The 'Kemusta' (ケムスタ) corner returned after a long gap. Matsui Kemuri commented on KOC 2026, saying he was 'incredibly happy' about Jeradon's win given the YouTube collaboration and the pre-final pep talk. He also floated a self-deprecating theory for why N-Sta hasn't called him recently: he suspects he fooled around too much on the segment. He introduced new words coined at KOC — 'Dōmaishi' (ドーマイシ) and 'Kesshonaiizu' (ケッショナイズ) — and noted that Spicy Garlic (スパイシーガーリック) advanced through the wild-card round.