Firstly, what is Manzai? Manzai is a kind of stand-up comedy which involves at least 2 people trading jokes, out of which at least 1 person is a straight man (tsukkomi), and the rest can be the funny man (boke). Simplistically, 'boke' means simple-minded/air-headed, whose role is to set the joke or the environment to make a joke, while the 'tsukkomi' which means 'jabbing', makes a jab at what the 'boke' says, completing the joke. It's much like xiangsheng for the Chinese. Manzai-style jokes are often used for comedy these days in anime, manga, 4-koma, light novels. (wiki Manzai for more information).
Some examples of comedy oriented series which uses a lot of manzai-style jokes:
Gintama (tsukkomi = Shinpacchi)
Sket Dance (tsukkomi = Himeko)
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka (tsukkomi = Ayumu)
Seitokai no Ichizon (tsukkomi = rotates, usually between Ken, Minatsu and Kurimu IIRC)
...
the list is inexhaustive.
a couple of examples:
Boke: The police is keeping this area under surveillance for 22 hours a day
Tsukkomi: Just cover the remaining 2 hours, dammit!
A: Let's make a theme song for our club
C: Theme song? Do you have any experience in composing music?
A: Me? There's no way I will have that right. B-san, do you have any experience in composing music
B: There's no way I will have that right
A: Then, C-kun, how about you?
C: There's no way I will have that right
A (Boke): Sigh. A bunch of useless people
C (Tsukkomi): You should be the last one to say that about others right!
if you find something that cracks you up, or if you are creative enough to make your own, post it here.
