is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese comic duo

Double act

A double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic pairing in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...

 duo from Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

 working for Shōchiku Geinō, the second largest comedy talent agency in Japan following Yoshimoto Kōgyō

Yoshimoto Kogyo

is a major Japanese entertainment conglomerate, with its headquarters based in Osaka. It was founded in 1912 as a traditional theatre, and has since grown to be one of the most influential companies in Japan, employing most of Japan's popular owarai talent, producing and promoting the shows they...

.

Yoiko are known otakus, even appearing on the variety show LINCOLN

Lincoln (variety show)

LINCOLN is a Japanese variety show. It premiered on October 18, 2005, and airs on TBS every Tuesday nights. Hosted by Downtown, it features seven other owarai geinin in its regular cast, and has several recurring younger, more inexperienced comedians as guests.The show uses Abraham Lincoln as its...

cosplaying as Char Aznable

Char Aznable

, born is a fictional character from the Gundam franchise. He is originally one of the main antagonists in Mobile Suit Gundam and later becomes one of the protagonists of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. In his final appearance in Char's Counterattack, he assumes leadership of the Neo Zeon movement,...

 and Amuro Ray

Amuro Ray

is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam and its sequels, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack, voiced by Tōru Furuya , Brad Swaile , Michael Lindsay and Matthew Erickson is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam and its sequels, Mobile...

 of the Gundam

Gundam

The is a metaseries of anime created by Sunrise studios that features giant robots called "Mobile Suits" ; usually the protagonist's MS will carry the name Gundam....

 anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series and taking Downtown

Downtown (owarai)

is a Japanese comedy duo from Amagasaki, Hyōgo consisting of and . Formed in 1982, they are one of the most influential and prolific kombi in Japan today...

 to Akihabara

Akihabara

, also known as , is an area of Tokyo, Japan. It is located less than five minutes by rail from Tokyo Station. Its name is frequently shortened to in Japan...

.

Members

Born February 25, 1972 in Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

. Plays the boke. Married in 2004 and has two children. Enjoys video games and anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

. He has received significant popularity in Akihabara in recent years due to his show Game Center CX, in which he plays through retro games

Retrogaming

Retrogaming, also known as old-school gaming, is the hobby of playing and collecting older computer, video, and arcade games. These games are played either on the original hardware, on modern hardware via emulation, or on modern hardware via ports or compilations...

. Because of this, he finds himself being called Kachō (meaning "section chief," it is his official "position" in Game Center CX) more and more often.
Born January 29, 1972 in Konohana-ku, Osaka

Konohana-ku, Osaka

is one of 24 wards of Osaka city, Japan.-External links:*...

. Plays the tsukkomi. Enjoys online games.

The duo (kombi) was originally formed under the pretense of Shinya Arino as the boke (stooge) and Masaru Hamaguchi as the tsukkomi (straightman), but as time went on and Hamaguchi's "natural stupidness" started to shine through, the duo became known as "the duo with no real distinction between the boke and the tsukkomi".

History

Though Arino and Hamaguchi attended different schools in their junior high years, they met and became friends through the same juku. They then went to the same senior high school, and upon graduation, Arino became a cook

Cook (profession)

A cook is a person who prepares food for consumption. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Canada this profession requires government approval ....

 at a hotel. He decided to join Hamaguchi to form a comedy duo when Hamaguchi told him, "If you enter the entertainment world, you'll have a chance at marrying Noriko Sakai

Noriko Sakai

is a Japanese pop singer and actress. She was born in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. She married in 1998, and divorced on July 31, 2010. She and Yūichi have one son, born in 1999. She is particularly popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan...

." They went with Shōchiku instead of the more famed Yoshimoto because they believed the competition in Yoshimoto was too great and thought they had a better chance at success in Shōchiku.

Their combo name at first was Arino & Hamaguchi, then Nameguchi, before settling with Yoiko.
The name of the duo incorporates the hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

 "wi"

Wi (kana)

ゐ, in hiragana, or ヰ in katakana, is a nearly obsolete Japanese kana, each of which represent one mora. It is presumed that ゐ represented and that ゐ and い indicated different pronunciations until somewhere between the Kamakura period and the Taishō period when they both came to be pronounced...

 character (ゐ) which has long been phased out of everyday use. While the character historically had a different pronunciation from the common "i"

I (kana)

い in hiragana or イ in katakana is one of the Japanese kana each of which represents one mora. い is based on the sōsho style of the kanji character 以, and イ is from the radical of the kanji character 伊. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the second position of the...

character (い), in modern use and for the many years leading up until it was phased out it was generally accepted that they were pronounced the same. Hence, while a kana transliteration of the combi name would be "Yowiko", a phonetic transliteration would be written "Yoiko".