#104 （2026年9月26日放送分）真誠presents 大久保佳代子・森本しんたろうのどうぞご自由に

Morimoto Shintaro's Name Change Lands on Yahoo News in Surreal Company

The day before recording, Morimoto Shintaro announced a formal stage-name revision — switching his given name from kanji characters to hiragana, writing it simply as "しんたろう." The news reached Yahoo News Japan's top page, but it shared the spotlight with two other stories: "Tsurtontan sold" and "Could Tutankhamun's tomb have a separate room?" All three headlines carry a similarly lilting, syllable-heavy rhythm, and Okubo Kayoko laughed that "all three blurred into each other — I couldn't get worked up at all." Morimoto offered a charitable reading, suggesting the Yahoo News editor may have arranged them as a playful in-joke, while quietly conceding that his story appeared at the bottom of the trio.

The hiragana name created a practical headache of its own. Okubo, who was finishing an essay at the time, explained that a name written entirely in hiragana runs visually into the surrounding text — "writing 'me and (that person) went somewhere' makes everything bleed together and becomes hard to read." She had even considered adding an honorific prefix to create a visual break. The timing carried its own bittersweetness: the two published essays in almost the same window, held joint signing events, and then watched the buzz evaporate within a month or two. "You launch together, there's a big splash, and then it's just... over," she said.

The "Morimoto AI" Proposal and Okubo's Warning

The first listener letter came from Kotashiro (コタシロウ), a 46-year-old man who has listened to the entire show run three times through. He praised Morimoto's "non-intrusive back-channeling," "flow-preserving comments," and "perfectly calibrated vocal tone and atmosphere," and urged Shinsei, CBC, and Jinrikisha to develop a "Morimoto AI" — one unit per household, he argued, would reduce the stress of single-person living and raise national productivity.

Morimoto reflected on his MC philosophy: because guests are doing him a favor by appearing, his goal is simply to send them home feeling they had a good time. He contrasted this with the ease of someone like Ueda-san, who tells actress guests they just need to leave happy, while Morimoto himself feels pressure to wring laughs out of every exchange.

Okubo was quick with a caveat. "I find talking with Morimoto so easy that it's almost a problem for me," she said. "If people rely entirely on a Morimoto AI they'll lose their ability to communicate — you have to practice with people who don't listen well, or you won't grow." She also noted that while AI might raise the conversational floor, "it cannot produce a 120-point moment."

Concern #1: A 54-Year-Old Exhausted by a Three-Time Boomerang Colleague

A 54-year-old woman from Tokyo wrote about a younger colleague who has returned to the same workplace three times. Each time, the colleague gradually establishes herself as the office's leading voice, badmouthing anyone she dislikes with the air of a company owner. Management responds with "she has her good points," and even the listener's resignation letter has not been accepted.

Okubo and Morimoto immediately zeroed in on the three-time return: "The only explanation is a personal relationship with the boss — there's no other way to understand it." Their advice was clear: don't fight alone; find coworkers who feel the same way and form a united front. On the rejected resignation letter, they added, "At that point, it might be time to bring in a lawyer."

Concern #2: Parenting Rage and Each Host's "I Didn't Know I Had That in Me" Moment

A 36-year-old woman named Yamepi (やめぴ) from Osaka wrote about life with a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old: the children never tidy up, immediately do whatever she just told them not to, and fight constantly, leaving her to referee every day until she snaps at something trivial. "I didn't know I could get this angry," she wrote.

Okubo found a parallel in her own dog, which had torn a knee ligament and was supposed to rest but kept sprinting around while its painkiller was working. "Every time I shouted 'stop running,' it seemed to amp the dog up even more — I think it reads my raised voice as excitement, like we're playing," she laughed. She offered the same reading of small children, and Morimoto added that emotions accumulate over time and only surface when the right conditions collide.

Both hosts then shared their own unexpected-anger stories. Morimoto confessed that during a "roast each other" segment in his young comedian days, he was matched with a peer he had genuine, complicated feelings about. The combination of a format that licensed insults and a target with real history produced something far more intense than planned — the other person ended up retreating to the bathroom. "Normally I just keep my distance from people I truly dislike," he said. "It only came out because the relationship was in that tricky middle zone and the format gave me permission."

Okubo recalled a guest role in the drama Kinkyuu Torishirabeshitsu (緊急取調室, Emergency Interrogation Room), playing a hysterical suspect in an interrogation scene. The performance came almost too naturally, and her co-stars were lavish in their praise. "I was certain work was about to pour in," she deadpanned, "and then absolutely nothing happened." She also noted she has played the same "scapegoat confession" character type in another show, suggesting it may be quietly becoming her niche — which earned a laugh from both.