May 31, 2021—as COVID-19 continued to spread, Masayasu Wakabayashi and Ryota Yamasato were on stage in front of an empty house getting ready for their live stream show. Although they’re from different comedy duos, The Nankai Candies and Audrey, they decided to create Tarinai Futari to perform new jokes about their complexes. Their final show is today.

It was twelve years ago when the two first met at an izakaya. Over ten minutes had passed since they sat down, but they continued to pore over the menu without saying a single word. Or more like, they couldn’t.

“It’s our first conversation so I better be careful,” Wakabayashi thought. His excessive self-consciousness and shyness stems from a “curse” that a certain someone had put on him when he was five.

“There’s no way I’m opening my mouth until you do,” Yamasato was thinking amidst their silence. His propensity for persecutory delusions that cause him to become aggressive has its roots in a “spell” that his mother has continued to chant since he was in grade school.

Two men who hate interacting with others because of quirks that developed when they were boys. Why then did they choose to become comedians? The answer lies in an incident they experienced in high school.

They haven’t discovered their true selves. All they know is that they want to be somebody. A man whose envy and persecutory delusions drive him crazy, and his extremely shy and negative friend agonize through the trials and tribulations of life, yet they keep charging forward. This is a coming-of-age survival story full of laughter and tears dedicated to anyone and everyone who feels they might have gotten lost along their path.