Conan O’Brien announces trip to Japan in negotiation over rural Tottori Prefecture’s Conan Town

American comedian responds to Hokei mayor’s request for his face on Mount Rushmore, says he’ll be here in Japan next week.

This month, American comedian Conan O’Brien took an unexpected step into the world of international negotiations. After discovering that the Japanese city of Hokuei, Tottori Prefecture, is also known as “Conan Town” (after anime/manga Detective Conan, whose creator was born in Hokuei), O’Brien devoted a segment of his talk show to detailing the ways Detective Conan is just an imitation of him, such as both of them being men trapped in children’s bodies and having unusual hairstyles. He then demanded three trillion yen (US$27 billion) in indemnities.

However, Hokuei’s mayor, Akio Matsumoto, then issued a statement of his own, telling O’Brien that if he wants justice, he should come visit Conan Town. O’Brien responded by adding additional demands (such as remodeling Hokuei’s Detective Conan statue to look more like the comedian), prompting Matsumoto to tack on supplementary demands of his own: his face on Mount Rushmore, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and 15,000 American hamburgers (one for every resident of Conan Town).

O’Brien has now responded once again, telling his audience “Don’t mess with that guy, Clearly I didn’t not realize who I was dealing with,” in regards to Matsumoto, before adding:

“Mayor Matsumoto, I know you’re watching, and I say this with all respect. You are a very shrewd negotiator. You got me. I will fulfill all three of your requests.”

So how is O’Brien going to satisfy those outlandish conditions?

First, he says that he’s going to do Matsumoto one better, and instead of forcing him to share space with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore, he’s given the Japanese mayor a mountain entirely for himself in Burbank, California, where O’Brien’s show is recorded.

▼ Well, a mountain in the studio backdrop facsimile of Burbank, anyway.

Next up, the Walk of Fame star. For this, O’Brien disguses himself as a security guard and heads out to the stretch of the sightseeing sidewalk ordinarily saluting musician Pitbull…

…and performs a bit of remodeling.

▼ It’s not clear whether O’Brien selected Pitbull’s star at random, or because of Matsumoto’s tenacious negotiating style.

Finally, regarding the burgers, O’Brien informs Matsumoto that since he doesn’t know how each resident of Conan Town wants their patty cooked, instead he’ll simply have an American cow air-dropped into Tottori, and the locals can grill it up however they like.

Now, with his end of the bargain complete (at least in his mind), Conan says the ball is in Matsumoto’s court, announcing:

“Mayor Matsumoto, I’ve matched all of your demands. Now it’s time for me to call your bluff. I want my three trillion yen. So here’s what’s gonna happen, and this is real. Next week, I am flying to Japan and coming to Japan to collect my money. I’ll be there.”

Now, considering the logistics involved in a major U.S. television production traveling all the way to Japan, odds are a trip was already in the works for some time, and in researching things for O’Brien to do in the country, Conan Town came up, and the weird negotiation is something both sides agreed to from the start. Either way, though, O’Brien is headed to Japan, and we can’t wait for him to get here.

Source, images: YouTube/Team Coco

Credit: