Japan is not a racist country, but they are certainly a nation that doesn’t play well with others.
Half-castes are a great rarity over there with over 90 per cent of the population homogeneous in nature with mixed race children making up less than 5 per cent of the population.
But somehow a Nigerian has managed to thrive on this. Meet Ike Nwala, a Nigerian-American comedian who has blown up on Japanese TV in recent times.
He is part of a comedy troupe and performs on Japanese TV every single day. He’s also on commercials and is easily the most recognizable black man on Japanese TV.
Ike is a regular cast member of the hugely popular Japanese children’s show ‘Oha Suta’ which is an equivalent to something like ‘Sesame Street’ and this puts his in front of children every day, a move he feel is hugely important as it begins to sensitize children at an early age to people of colour.
Speaking on how he got into Japan in the first place, Ike said; “So I got a job at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, I worked in computer engineering. And the whole time I was watching comedy DVDs nonstop, teaching myself Japanese, and working on my material.”
He started working with a comedy troupe as its only non-Japanese member. But it was his appearance on a popular TV show, doing an impression of the announcer at the Tokyo Disney Sea resort, that really launched his career. A video clip went viral, and before long he was fielding calls from shows that wanted him as a guest.
A huge plus for Ike is how fluently he can switch from Japanese to English and back again, this has made him hugely popular in Japan and his star has continued to rise.
Below is a video taken from ‘Vice’ which follows his life and career.