History Main / BokeAndTsukkomiRoutine

[[caption-width-right:350:Now just do that with 50 different jokes and you got a ''Manzai'' act![[note]]Most Manzai isn't translatable into English because this is what you get. In this case, 'kobushi' is both a form in Enka singing and a JapanesePopMusic group, which as this note proves, prevents the joke from making any sense without outside context.[[/note]]]]

-->-- ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' (Japanese localization)

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'': The comments that the Squid Sisters make during newscasts often resemble this routine, with Callie acting as the Boke and Marie as the Tsukkomi. In particular, many stage announcements follow the formula of Callie stating something ridiculous and Marie snarking at her for it. ''Boke vs. Tsukkomi'' was actually used as a theme for the Splatfest event in Japan. As an added bonus, their appearances in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' even reflect the traditional boke-tsukkomi dynamic; the goofy Callie is dressed casually in a pink beanie and matching jacket, white tank top with black undershirt, and shorts, while the stern and serious Marie wears a formal kimono.

** In the Senbatsu arc of the anime, Amane is paired up with Oshitari (who ''is'' an Osaka native) in doubles. He attempts to pull the other into a similar dynamics...only to make the always calm Oshitari [[DudeNotFunny lose]] [[BerserkButton his]] [[BewareTheNiceOnes temper]]. It's theorised, however, that Oshitari ''may'' not be ''that'' upset, just playing the ''tsukkomi'' role relaying on verbal insults rather than physical violence.

* Film/TheThreeStooges is the strongest example to this comedy routine in amarica. With the boke being Larry and Curley always making some kind of crazy claim and getting slaked around or beat up by Moe who is the tsukkomi of the group.

* In ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'', Monokuma makes Monomi join him in one of these routines, making her play a ''tsukkomi'' to his sneaky ''boke''. This isn't just about {{Troll}}ing her or putting on a performance; he's luring her and their audience off guard so that he can [[spoiler:reveal she tampered with their memories]] without her realizing what he's doing until it's too late.

* [[TheIdiotFromOsaka Aizawa Sakuya]] from ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler'' more or less views life as a non-stop series of gags and comedy routines, frequently treating the unwitting Hayate as the boke and viciously assaulting him for any number of completely nonsensical reasons (mainly for being really bad at being a boke) whenever she makes an appearance. Her antics, in turn, often set ''her'' up for the boke role whenever Nagi is nearby, who answers attacks on Hayate in the name of comedy in kind.

* ''Literature/AesirCrossWars'': One of the primary sources of comedy is Azazel (boke) being an idiot or a dick, and Azrael (tsukkomi) commenting sarcastically on it, before the two start bickering.
* ''Literature/TheSpectrumGame'': Azurine is TheDitz, playing the boke. Inigo ''kind of'' plays along as the tsukkomi, but he can be a bit of a GeniusDitz at times. This leaves Silas as the only full-time tsukkomi.

** Aruto and Is from ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'' have this dynamic, which takes a ironic twist as Aruto’s preferred style of comedy is screaming an IncrediblyLamePun with NoIndoorVoice, yet no one in-universe sans [[TheComicallySerious Fuwa]] finds his PungeonMaster routine funny. Aruto’s most legitimately funny moments are when he’s playing the straight man to Is, who defies DontExplainTheJoke consistently describe his wordplay, much to his frustration. The [=YouTube=] special makes this a plot point, as Comedian-type [=HumaGear=] Fukkinhoukai Taro—who was the VictimOfTheWeek[=/=]MonsterOfTheWeek in the first episode that replaced Aruto after he lost his comedian job—initially refuses to entrust his SoulJar to Aruto when Aruto loses the joke competition between them, but relents after seeing that Aruto’s true comedic strength lies in being the tsukkomi.

* ''Manga/KaijuGirlCaramelise'': In middle school, Raimu "Rairi" Kouno took advantage of her apelike face by filling the "Boke" role opposite her classmate Yuu Okada, who filled the "Tsukkomi" role. We don't hear any ''specific'' joke they made at this time, but a panel showing Okada giving a sheepishly grinning Rairi a DopeSlap makes it obvious what they were generally doing.
* ''Manga/SketDance'' is one giant Shonen-style boke-and-tsukkomi routine. Although all of the Sket Trio can be any of the two roles depending on the situation, Bossun and Himeko are able to pull off this act ''masterfully'', even when in their everyday interactions with each other.
** Chiaki Takahasi pointed this out when Bossun met Himeko for the first time.
** In one chapter, Bossun and Himeko partnered up on the spot during the closing round of a live Manzai contest. [[spoiler:Their flawless performance eventually gave them the win against their cheating opponent]].
** Himeko once participated in a TV show pitting two pro or amateur comedians against each other in an "all-out tsukkomi clash", delivering line after line of loud comedic reactions to see who was the superior [[StraightMan tsukkomi]].
* In ''Manga/TheRedRangerBecomesAnAdventurerInAnotherWorld'', [[FishOutOfWater Tougo]] is the Boke to everyone else's Straight Man as they react to his StockShonenHero antics and strange weapons from another world while explaining concepts to him. Idola is the most frequent foil to Tougo, and she's shocked when Misty barely shows any reaction to Tougo's TransformationSequence.
-->'''Tougo:''' ''[after getting a lengthy explanation about mana-metal]'' In other words, you're trying to protect the bond between magic and people!\\
'''Idola:''' Um, yeah. I think that's somewhat close to what I meant.
* ''Manga/{{Senyuu}}'' is more or less centered around this type of comedy, with Alba acting as the "tsukomi" and pretty much everyone else being the "boke". Lym also fills the "tsukomi" role in volume 3.
* ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'' is basically a series of boke and tsukkomi routine. The characters even describe their own interactions as such.
* In a typical bit of self-reference, Haré in ''Anime/HareGuu'' said that, since he is the show's ''Tsukkomi'', he is not good at telling funny stories.
* ''Anime/DigimonFusion'' of all places have this. [[spoiler:And it was done during the DefrostingIceQueen episode for Nene...with Akari.]]
* In ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'', Kasumi occasionally tries to pull off a sequence of these jokes playing both parts herself.

* ''LightNovel/MariaWatchesOverUs'' does this in the PostEpisodeTrailer a couple of times.

* On ''Manga/SgtFrog'', Natsumi frequently refers to Keroro as ''boke-gaeru'' (usually translated as "stupid frog"). Episode 18 of the series involves Natsumi being [[OvernightAgeUp turned into an adult]] and given a KansaiRegionalAccent by Kururu's latest inventions, so she can perform ''manzai'' in a beauty pageant/comedy contest.
* In the "Tower of Terror" episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', the Ghost Pokemon trio (Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar) are first seen watching such a routine on TV.
** When Team Rocket accidentally capture Brock's Lombre (they were aiming for a Mawile), Wobbuffet appears to Lombre and they do a bunch of random slapstick skits in the process, all in PokemonSpeak. Funnily enough, it was Wobbuffet, the biggest idiot in Team Rocket, who was playing the ''tsukkomi''. What does Meowth have to say? "A really bad comedy routine".
** In the ''Diamond and Pearl'' saga of the ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' manga, the goal of the two main characters is not to be great Pokémon trainers, but to be great ''manzai'' performers. They take a chance to practice their act in every chapter.

* Rina and Ranfa do an impromptu boke and tsukkomi routine when they run into each other in a ''Manga/MermaidMelodyPichiPichiPitch'' episode.
* The premise of ''Manga/LovelyComplex'' is the budding romance between HugeSchoolgirl Risa and TheNapoleon Ootani, who has trouble seeing Risa as anything more than his partner in their boke and tsukkomi routine. [[LampshadeHanging Everyone calls them "All Hanshin-Kyojin,"]] after a famous tall & short ''manzai'' comedy duo, and the show even takes place in Sakai, Osaka with everyone speaking in a KansaiRegionalAccent, just to drive it home.
* In an episode of 'Manga/AngelicLayer'', Kaede entertains guests at a victory party by performing both parts of the routine with herself as the tsukkomi and Blanche as the boke.

* In ''Manga/GetBackers,'' Emishi and Amon pull off a number of these. (The first involves Emishi trying to describe the appearance, by comparing her to various celebrities, of a woman he's never met; in the second he insists on the existence of "stomach trilobites" to the point of drawing one on his abs in marker...)
* Kunogi Himawari of ''Manga/XxxHolic'' misinterprets Doumeki and Watanuki's constant arguments as an attempt to be a humorous Boke and Tsukkomi team.
* ''Manga/ThePrinceOfTennis'':
** Doubles partners Hikaru "Dabide" Amane and Harukaze "Bane-san" Kurobane from Rokkaku frequently pull these off. More often than not, ''boke'' Dabide makes some rather bad word puns, and ''tsukkomi'' Bane kicks him ''on the head'' as a punishment. That even happens during matches, where Bane [[ArmorPiercingSlap slaps]] Dabide across the face if he's slacking.
** In the Senbatsu arc of the anime, Amane is paired up with Oshitari (who ''is'' an Osaka native) in doubles. He attempts to pull the other into a similar dynamics...only to make the always calm Oshitari [[DudeNotFunny lose]] [[BerserkButton his]] [[BewareTheNiceOnes temper]]. It's theorised, however, that Oshitari ''may'' not be ''that'' upset, just playing the ''tsukkomi'' role relaying on verbal insults rather than physical violence.
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
** Ishida and Pesche did this when they were forced to team up. Pesche is [[RuleOfFunny acting stupid on purpose, though]].
** Less explicitly, there's also Hitsugaya to Matsumoto, Sui-Feng to Omaeda, Ichigo to Kon (with Rukia), to his Dad (with Karin), to Keigo, to Urahara, and to Nel, Hiyori to Shinji & vice versa, Nanao to Kyouraku, Maki-Maki to Yachiru, etc., etc. With so many characters, it's no surprise there's a lot ''manzai'' duos in ''Bleach''.
** In ''Souls,'' the ''Bleach'' character book (for the manga), a short omake chapter has Mayuri Kurotschi discussing this with Nemu, while both wear stand-up comedian suits -- however, Kurotschi is taking "tsukkomi" in its alternate Japanese meaning of the verb "to stab" and is apparently looking forward to the part where he gets to stab Nemu. Then again, this '''is''' [[SociopathicHero Mayuri]] [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Kurotsuchi]] we're talking about; he doesn't seem content to produce anything less than half of the horrors in the entire series.
** Around the time Ichigo first used his Bankai, one {{Omake}} held a manzai routine with Ichigo as the straight man and Ganju, Orihime and possibly someone else as the comic counterpart. The entire think was based off of similar sounding words to Bankai and manzai (such as banzai and sempai), in sentences that are worded so as to be self-referential humor and correct. Surprisingly, this skit of Japanese wordplay ''was'' brought over in the dub. The important words were explained in a series of rapid-fire notes, but left untranslated.
** This series loves it enough to use it in a 100 year flashback. Both Shinji and Urahara with Hiyori, Kensei with Mashiro (which continues in the present), and Shinji with [[spoiler:Aizen]].
* The wannabe comedy duo in ''Anime/AkahoriGedouHourLovege'', Love Pheromone, are a straightforward example of this. Mostly.
* Anime/PrettyCure:
** Apparantly someone in the writing staff loves their ''manzai''.
** The relationship between best friends Nozomi and Rin in ''Anime/YesPrettyCure5'' is not unlike that of a boke and tsukkomi routine. Nozomi is an [[TheDitz optimistic idiot]] who is always trying to [[JumpedAtTheCall Jump At The Call]] while Rin is a [[GrumpyBear sensible realist]] who always points out the gaping flaws in Nozomi's plans. Usually along the lines of:
--->'''Nozomi:''' I want to do [activity]!\\
'''Rin:''' You were kicked out of the school's [activity] club after three days.\\
'''Nozomi:''' You don't have to mention ''that!''
** Later, [[TheCameo an actual manzai duo]], named Audrey, guest-stars in one episode of ''Anime/FreshPrettyCure''.
** The core dynamic of Hibiki and Kanade, the two main characters of ''Anime/SuitePrettyCure'', is this.
** {{Exaggerated|Trope}} in episode 17 of ''Anime/SmilePrettyCure''. The entire main cast signs up to act in the manzai contest with two tsukkomis and three bokes (one of them being TheComicallySerious to the point where she has NoSenseOfHumor) just acting their normal selves. '''Nothing''' goes AllAccordingToPlan between all the mistimed punchlines, so [[CuteClumsyGirl Miyuki]] calls a timeout only to trip on her way off stage. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm2PFAcH-0 Can be seen here, beginning at the 50-second mark]].
** There is an element of this in ''Anime/MahouTsukaiPrettyCure'' too.
* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'', HotBlooded Tasuki and his best friend Kouji go into these sometimes.
* Maria in ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' once spent far too long time watching Boke and Tsukkomi and started slapping people who were looking dazy...''on the first day after New Years Eve!!''
** Not to mention she tended to make people ATwinkleInTheSky...And then, because it's that kind of show, she joined a secret Boke and Tsukommi ''underground political organization'' [[note]]They were partly that, but they also represent far right-wing Japanese ultra-nationalists, who complain about Japan's "peacetime boke" (in comparison to its [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan earlier attitude)]][[/note]].

* Very common in ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'', mostly due to lead girl Asuna's [[ImprobableWeaponUser weaponized]] PaperFanOfDoom. Setsuna also seems to be able to convert her tanto weapon to a fan at will whenever she wants to DopeSlap someone (specifically Chao whenever she makes a SarcasticConfession about her many [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot affiliations]]).
** And then there's Chisame, who wishes she could give everything the tsukkomi treatment so very, very badly.
*** Chisame takes on this role physically when dealing with Jack Rakan although most of the time its usually a knee to the face instead of an actual fan [[spoiler:(He could take a Nuke and probably not feel it)]]. They make [[spoiler:(made)]] a very good team.
** In Akamatsu's earlier work ''Manga/LoveHina'', Mutsumi's...different way of thinking is based on the idiot half, with Naru or Keitaro providing the straight man's reaction.
* In episode 7 of ''Anime/SailorMoon'', two female classmates of Usagi's develop this act for a talent show, which turns out to be set up by the Dark Kingdom to harvest the LifeEnergy of aspiring stars.
* In ''[[Anime/OjamajoDoremi Motto! Ojamajo Doremi]]'', former SOS Trio member Sugiyama forms this act with straight-A student Ogura as rivals to the new Trio. Helped along by Aiko (who's from Osaka), Momoko finds them as stupidly hilarious as Hazuki does for the other team

* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' features this in an omake, which has [[MafiaPrincess Yukio]] and her classmate rehearsing a manzai for school, though the classmate is clueless. Yukio's bodyguard Ginji has two members of the [[{{Yakuza}} Washimine group]] perform an example, but when it's time for the ''tsukkomi'' to smack his partner, he actually clocks him hard enough to knock him down. Unfortunately, the ''boke'' is of a much higher rank in the clan and doesn't really understand the concept of slapstick, so he punishes his subordinate off-screen with knuckle dusters. Disturbingly, Yukio is quite amused, and Ginji thinks that's how Manzai is supposed to go. Later the police arrest the whole lot, and it's revealed Yukio's partner attacked her with a crowbar in the middle of practice because she feared that the act would get violent again.
* In a strange example from ''Manga/TheLawOfUeki+'', this trope is actually part of a character's DarkAndTroubledPast, where he was badly injured while practicing one of these routines and his partner left the city without him, so he stopped believing in friendship. This character is otherwise completely serious, and upon the other characters being told about this, they decide to proceed to use BrainBleach.
* A brother-sister variation occurs in ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' with Jun (serious big sis) and Jinpei (smartass kid).
* ''Manga/BGataHKei'' is essentially one big manzai routine between Yamada and her best friend Takeshita. Whenever Yamada bugs her best friend about something sex-related, Takeshita is there to smack her (verbally and/or physically).
* ''LightNovel/{{Bakemonogatari}}'s'' often odd dialogue centers around the main character Araragi as the tsukkomi and the other person in the conversation as the boke. Whether or not the boke is acting as such intentionally is a matter of debate.
* Koganei (a newscaster) and Amasawa (a weatherman) from ''Manga/TheWeathermanIsMyLover'' have a strong manzai dynamic together which creates much of the appeal of their program, as the audience is waiting for the moment Koganei will crack.
* ''Manga/NodameCantabile'' has a notable gender-flip of male-on-female variant played for laughs the same way it would if female-on-male. {{Tsundere}} Chiaki often resorts to violence {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Nodame does something that annoys him. Nodame herself even [[LampshadeHanging admits]] to playing up the role since Chiaki is the perfect StraightMan.
* In an early episode of ''Anime/TwinPrincessOfWonderPlanet Gyu!'', Fine and Rein meet a girl named Lemon who comes from a [[PlanetOfHats planet where everyone is into comedy]], and wants to team up with them for a manzai act. She tries to be the boke, even though she's more suited to be the tsukkomi, and eventually she tells them that she quit being a tsukkomi after she hit her brother (her old partner) so hard that he fell unconscious and quit comedy for good. Later, her brother confesses that he didn't actually faint, he just realized that he couldn't be a good enough boke for her, so he stayed down.
* This is a good part of ''Manga/OnePiece'''s humor. A character will say or do something completely absurd and act like it's no big deal, while someone else will flip out. About half the crew tends toward one side and the other half to the other, so even when the crew splits up, each subgroup will almost invariably contain characters with a tendency toward ''boke'' reactions and at least one ''tsukkomi''. A more literal example would be the interaction between ''Anime/OnePieceFilmStrongWorld's'' GodCreatedCanonForeigner villains Shiki and Dr. Indigo, who, apparently, have been doing it for over 20 years.
* ''Manga/{{Eyeshield 21}}'' has this as a lot of it's humor. Hiruma tends to play a sneaky boke to his team, though almost everyone the team has their boke moments. Kakei and Mizumachi are this pretty much all the time.
* In ''Manga/StrawberryMarshmallow'', Miu is the boke, while her usual tsukkomi is Chika. In one episode, Chika's trying to concentrate on homework, but Miu wants to know who'll be the straight man for her antics. She tries to get Matsuri to play the role instead, but she's too "boring" for it. Her other common tsukkomi is Nobue, Chika's older sister.

* Occasionally happens in ''Manga/FairyTail''. Natsu take the boke role while Gray, Erza or Lucy are the tsukkomi.
* The author calls [[NationsAsPeople England and Japan]] from ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' this, though adds he's not sure who is the boke and who is the tsukkomi.
* A RunningGag in the ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' omake comics has Hayate [[http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4272/asnano59.jpg being portrayed as a master]] of the Boke and Tsukkomi routine due to having a KansaiDialect.
** In ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaINNOCENT'', an alternate LighterAndSofter continuity, the BigBad of the first season, Precia Testarossa, is the boke, and the BigGood of the first two seasons, Lindy Harlaown, is the tsukkomi. The reason why it works so well is that Precia is both a DotingParent ''and'' AmazinglyEmbarrassingParent, unlike her incredibly monstrous EvilMatriarch portrayal in the original series. While Lindy is a very friendly and nice person who never gets particularly angry in the original series, Precia's various antics and sudden disappearances in their workplace just to see her (cute) daughters pisses Lindy off in this continuity.
*** Hayate can also be count as the boke to Dearche's tsukkomi.
* In ''Manga/{{Yuyushiki}}'', Yuzuko and Yukari act as a dual boke, with Yui as the tsukkomi.
* In one episode of ''Manga/KOn'', Yui and Azusa enter a show on their own, and start their performance with actual ''manzai'', with Yui as the boke, mostly utilizing malapropisms but also by "forgetting" what they were going to play, and Azusa as the fan-wielding tsukkomi, correcting her.
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' references this in the second guidebook, referring to BeleagueredAssistant Moblit as the "tsukkomi" to his MadScientist squad leader, Hanji.
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** Goku and Krillin unintentionally do manzai for a crowd in ''Manga/DragonBall'', much to the latter's embarrassment.
** About three decades later, Vegeta would later become Goku's tsukkomi in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper''.

* One of Creator/JunjiIto's stories (''Ghosts of Golden Time'') features a profoundly unfunny duo who force the audience to laugh via possession, some of them dying from the strain.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Sakura, occasionally Sasuke, tends play the tsukkomi to Naruto's boke.
* ''Manga/{{Yowamushi Pedal}}'': Ashikiba Takuto and Kuroda Yukinari are a BokeAndTsukkomiRoutine duo. Izumida refers to the two as this, asking if they're "done with their manzai act" during a race.
* Dr. Manelger and Itsy-Bits from ''VideoGame/{{Monster Hunter}} [[TheAnimeoftheGame Stories Ride On]]'', before their character profiles were replaced by those of the Season 2 antagonists, were expressly described as having this kind of relationship on the anime's official Japanese page. Lilia even asks if they are such a duo upon first meeting them and seeing the way they interact.
* Chapter 7 of ''Manga/MononokeSharing'' has Kuro try to form a comedy duo with Yata, noting that she's the only tsukkomi in the house.

* This is a regular occurance between Sousuke and Kaname on ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'', with one of Sousuke's school nicknames even being [[LampshadeHanging "War Boke"]]. Later on, Sousuke finds himself as the tsukkomi to [[SapientSteed Al's]] boke, an irony not lost on Sousuke's coworkers.
* Discussed as part of Chapter 10 of ''Manga/DontToyWithMeMissNagatoro''. Nagatoro wants to act this out with Senpai. Notably she puts herself in the Boke role, subtly showing that she mostly means her teasing and bullying of him as a joke, and wants him to stand up for himself and give retorts back. It goes horribly wrong at first, though Nagatoro manages to salvage it. And then Senpai ends up [[spoiler:[[ThanksForTheMammary slapping her boob]]]].

-->'''Grim Blitzro:''' Hi, Grim Blitzro here, along with my partners Bricks and Bricks Jr. How're you guys doing?\\

[[caption-width-right:350:Now just do that with 50 different jokes and you got a ''Manzai'' act![[note]]Most Manzai isn't translatable into English because this is what you get. In this case, 'kobushi' is both a form in Enka singing and a JapanesePopMusic group, which as this note proves prevents the joke from making any sense without outside context.[[/note]]]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'':

[[caption-width-right:350:Now just do that with 50 different jokes and you got a ''Manzai'' act![[note]]Most Manzai isn't translatable into English because this is what you get. In this case, 'kobushi' is both a form in Enka singing and a JapanesePopMusic group, but DontExplainTheJoke quickly kicks in...[[/note]]]]

* ''Anime/DigimonXrosWars'' of all places have this. [[spoiler:And it was done during the DefrostingIceQueen episode for Nene...with Akari.]]

* Franchise/PrettyCure:

->'''Aori:''' The contestants are: the one who throws out words like curveballs - the "Boke"! And--
->'''Hotaru:''' The one who calmly hits them right back! The "Tsukkomi"~

* This is a good part of ''Manga/OnePiece'''s humor. A character will say or do something completely absurd and act like it's no big deal, while someone else will flip out. About half the crew tends toward one side and the other half to the other, so even when the crew splits up, each subgroup will almost invariably contain characters with a tendency toward ''boke'' reactions and at least one ''tsukkomi''. A more literal example would be the interaction between ''Anime/OnePieceFilmStrongWorld's'' GodCreatedCanonForeigner villains Shiki and Dr. Indigo, who, apparently, have been doing it over 20 years ago.

* Takeshi and his advisor Ishikura from Series/TakeshisCastle would often partake in these a boke and tsukkomi routine. Elements of this were retained when the show was turned into the gag dub ''Series/MostExtremeEliminationChallenge''.

* The late Porkchop Duo of the Philippines had a zigzagged variant of this trope: after every skit, they switch around the roles of boke and tsukkomi.

* ''LightNovel/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou'' has Mashiro and Sorata, an IdiotSavant and her CloudcuckoolandersMinder, doing the boke and tsukkomi respectively. Many of Sorata and Mashiro conversations end with Sorata freaking over Mashiro's latest outrageous line/act.

* ''VideoGame/Yakuza2'' has a substory where you meet a guy who's fallen out of a boke and tsukkomi duo, where his jokes don't land and his friend gave up on comedy. When the two meet again, they realize they're a lot better off with the roles switched and reunite as a comedy duo.

It is common in Osaka so both members of the comedy duo frequently speak in [[KansaiRegionalAccent Kansai-ben]]. Frequently, manzai teams will dress in one of two ways: 1) similarly tailored outfits with complementary color schemes; 2) one (usually the ''boke'') wears casual clothes, and the other (usually the ''tsukkomi'') a respectable business suit. Ironically, the most famous ''manzai'' duo of all time, [[Series/GakiNoTsukaiYaArahende Downtown]], reversed this -- Hitoshi Matsumoto, the ''boke'', always wears a suit and tie (albeit with the tie tucked neatly into his trousers), and Masatoshi Hamada, the ''tsukkomi'', always wears something casual. (They're also pretty much single-handedly responsible for the equation of Kansai-ben with funny characters.)

A very similar routine, the 'White Clown/Red Clown' skit, was (and sometimes still is) very popular in Russian live comedy shows, with the Red being the ''boke'' and White being the ''tsukkomi''.

Called ''manzai'' in Japanese, this is a kind of StraightManAndWiseGuy duo, but it's also the interaction between two characters who constantly play off each other. The ''tsukkomi'' is the StraightMan of the pair, roughly, while the ''boke'' is more or less the Wise Guy -- but it's not an ''exact'' match. The act usually involves the duo having a conversation on some subject, with the ''tsukkomi'' trying to correct the ''boke''[='=]s misconceptions; the ''tsukkomi'' will sometimes try to have his partner act out a scene with him in order to help make his point. The ''boke'', meanwhile, sets up the gags by [[ComicallyMissingThePoint getting everything completely wrong]], either because he's a moron or because he's being a smartass to the ''tsukkomi''. Every line of conversation repeatedly leads up to the ''boke'' saying or doing something unbelievably stupid, at which point the ''tsukkomi'' will finally lose his patience and DopeSlap him; a good manzai act needs both halves of the duo to be funny, both for the ''boke''[='=]s idiocy and the ''tsukkomi''[='=]s short temper.

It is common in Osaka so normally both members of the comedy duo will speak in [[KansaiRegionalAccent Kansai-ben]]. Frequently, manzai teams will dress in one of two ways: 1) similarly tailored outfits with complementary color schemes; 2) one (usually the ''boke'') wears casual clothes, and the other (usually the ''tsukkomi'') a respectable business suit. Ironically, the most famous ''manzai'' duo of all time, [[Series/GakiNoTsukaiYaArahende Downtown]], reversed this -- Hitoshi Matsumoto, the ''boke'', always wears a suit and tie (albeit with the tie tucked neatly into his trousers), and Masatoshi Hamada, the ''tsukkomi'', always wears something casual. (They're also pretty much single-handedly responsible for the equation of Kansai-ben with funny characters.)

When the characters do this ''purposely'' to impress, it's not supposed to be very funny and no one will laugh, despite good intentions. When someone is the ''tsukkomi'' for an entire cast, they're probably also the OnlySaneMan. When someone is a ''boke'' for the whole cast, they're probably also a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}. Do not be surprised in a show with a large cast if one character is ''boke'' to one person and ''tsukkomi'' to another.

On a side note, this routine was (and sometimes still is) very popular in Russian live comedy shows, where it is universally known as the 'White Clown/Red Clown' skit, with the Red playing the role of ''boke'' and White playing ''tsukkomi''.

* The late Porkchop Duo of the Philippines zigzagged this trope, because in every other skit, they switch around the roles of boke and tsukkomi.

** Tomo occasionally demands to be the "boke" to an utterly unsuited Osaka's tsukkomi, and Yomi (who is eminently suited) has played that part at least once. During Tomo's first New Year's dream, the roles end up being reversed between her and Tomo, something that the latter gladly takes pleasure in (implying that she's secretly insecure about constantly being the "boke" in her peer groups).