The primary time Atsuko Okatsuka filmed a comedy particular, 2022’s “The Intruder” for HBO and Max, she didn’t have medical insurance. Lots has modified since then.

Immediately recognizable for her extreme bowl haircut and “art teacher”-esque, maximalist style, the Los Angeles-based comic has since grow to be insured, employed an assistant, launched into a world tour, amassed greater than two million Instagram followers, met relations she didn’t know she had and filmed her second comedy particular, “Father,” which was launched June 13 on Hulu.

“I think I have, like, 12 agents or something, and I’m like, ‘Is that even a thing?’” Okatsuka says over Zoom. Carrying a purple, yellow and magenta colorblocked T-shirt, Okatsuka flashes aqua nails topped off with sizzling canine charms. “It comes with leveling up, right? Not to quote ‘Spider-Man,’ but … yeah, responsibility, right?”

The constructing blocks of Okatsuka’s life stay in place, although. Amid touring the globe on her “Full Grown” tour, being interviewed by Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” and Chelsea Handler on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and being named one among Selection’s Prime 10 Comics to Watch in 2022 (amongst different accolades), the Taiwanese Japanese stand-up nonetheless spends most of her time along with her Grandma Li, her mom, and husband Ryan Harper Grey, who’s an actor, director and producer and helps handle Okatsuka. Relations function prominently in Okatsuka’s comedy, to such an extent that plenty of her sentences start with “My grandmother…” and “My husband, Ryan…”

“I am an open book in that I truly want to connect with people,” Okatsuka says. “I’m just gonna end up telling you what’s happening in my life. That’s the only way I can try to connect with other humans.”

(Mary Ellen Matthews / Disney)

On this respect, Okatsuka jokingly refers to herself as codependent, however from a comedy standpoint, her familial riffing serves as a useful world-building machine, constructing a way of familiarity with audiences, who little question stroll out of Okatsuka’s units feeling like they actually know her. “I am an open book in that I truly want to connect with people,” she says. “I’m just gonna end up telling you what’s happening in my life. That’s the only way I can try to connect with other humans. It just naturally happens to be that I am with my mom, grandma and Ryan a lot. I love that the fans have gotten to know the family. They can be Team Ryan. They could be Team Me. I think most often they’re Team Ryan. They’re like, ‘Oh, Atsuko did it again. She can’t find her keys.’”

Okatsuka’s scatterbrained qualities — like shedding her keys, realizing she’s by no means as soon as used the washer and dryer and relying on Grey to arrange her Zoom calls — usually are not solely endearing, additionally they have knowledgeable her particular’s title of “Father.” As Okatsuka’s star rose, her followers have taken to calling her “Mother,” a principally Gen Z slang time period signaling approval. However to Okatsuka, a “mother” is aware of find out how to do issues like use the washer and dryer and fill out paperwork accurately, which she stays willfully ignorant about. For instance, she incessantly tells a narrative about how she and Grey forgot to file their marriage certificates once they first bought married in 2017. When Okatsuka went to place Grey on her medical insurance in 2023, she discovered there was no document of them being married. “What about the unorganized girls?” she asks her viewers. “What about the b— that crumbles easily? We exist! We are not a monolith… No, no, no… I am Father.”

Whereas Okatsuka has been doing stand-up for the higher a part of a decade, beginning out with native units on the Virgil and Dynasty Typewriter, she shot to viral fame through the pandemic when she posted a video of her (and her grandmother) instantly “dropping” to Beyoncé’s “Yoncé” in sudden areas like Little Tokyo and the grocery retailer. Producing hundreds of thousands of views, the #DropChallenge exploded, with everybody from Mandy Moore to Serena Williams emulating Okatsuka.

Along with traditional observational and absurdist comedy, a part of Okatsuka’s appeal can be that she has an actual knack for tapping into web humor. Throughout her social media channels, she dances and places her personal spin on TikTok skits and tendencies. A latest instance is a clip of her doing Doechii’s “Anxiety” dance whereas her grandmother hovers in an try and feed her dumplings.

Whereas “Father” is a self-deprecating jab at Okatsuka’s nondomestic qualities, the title additionally refers to Okatsuka’s latest reunion along with her dad in Japan. This marks the start of a winding life journey, which Okatsuka has spoken of at size in her comedy, in addition to in an episode of “This American Life” titled “I Coulda Grown Big In Japan.”

Her story started when Okatsuka’s mother and father, who met on a Japanese courting present, divorced shortly after her start in 1988. At first, the comic lived along with her father in Chiba; later, she moved in along with her mom and grandmother. However when her mom started having psychological well being struggles (Okatsuka’s mom was later identified with schizophrenia), Okatsuka’s grandmother moved everybody to Los Angeles to be nearer to her uncle in West L.A. On the time, Okatsuka’s grandmother instructed an 8-year-old Okatsuka they had been occurring a “two-month vacation.” However as eight weeks became years, Okatsuka began to surprise if maybe she’d been kidnapped — one other idea she’s labored into her units. “We’re just like a chiller, more polite, Japanese ‘Jerry Springer’ show,” Okatsuka cracks of her familial backstory.

When requested what it meant to reconnect along with her father, Okatsuka turns into somber. “It filled a lot of holes — like, questions that I had. Like, did my grandma kidnap me? I also learned your gut is often right.”

Technically, Okatsuka was kidnapped, if solely as a result of her father had full custody of her on the time. Okatsuka would possibly joke about affected by Stockholm syndrome, however she actually is finest pals along with her grandma, who was her major caregiver in childhood and now has her personal social media fan base.

“That’s why I got into comedy,” Atsuko says. “So that other people can feel seen, and I feel seen too.”

(Lee Jameson)

Satirically, it didn’t happen to Okatsuka to pursue comedy till she was in her early 20s. Her first publicity to stand-up was when, in eighth grade, a pal slipped her a Margaret Cho DVD throughout a church sermon. “I was like, this is badass. But nowhere did my brain go, ‘That’s gotta be me,’” Okatsuka says. “I dreamed pretty small. When I was a kid in L.A., my dream was to work at an ice cream parlor … And then at 17, I did. [I worked at] Cold Stone Creamery in West L.A. I said, ‘Now what? I’ve already reached my goal. I peaked at 17. I have to dream more.’”

Okatsuka spent a yr and a half attending UC Riverside after which transferred to CalArts, the place she majored in artistic writing and movie/video. “You can just get in with an art portfolio; you don’t need grades,” she deadpans. “My interest was in the arts. I wasn’t an academic.” After artwork college, Okatsuka determined to actually make a go at stand-up amid juggling a handful of jobs — canine strolling, educating cinema at School of the Canyons in Santa Clarita and dance health in Atwater Village. “But stand-up comedy was always first for me,” she says. “Sometimes I would, you know, take off from teaching community college and get Ryan to substitute for me. It was totally illegal.”

In 2018, Okatsuka bought her now-signature bowl haircut, which has made her so recognizable that followers everywhere in the world present as much as her units sporting bowl-cut wigs. She would possibly child round about being caught with it (“because my brand,” she says in “Father”), however she actually does enjoyment of its permanence, just because it makes folks so completely happy. Plus, her followers went to the difficulty of shopping for and customizing lookalike wigs. “I mean, in this economy? They gotta be able to wear their wigs again the next time they come to see me.”

Followers will get their likelihood to interrupt out the wigs once more. After “Father”, Okatsuka is heading again on the highway in September for the Large Bowl Tour. However there’s a bittersweet factor to Okatsuka’s always-expanding schedule. The busier she will get, the much less time there’s to spend along with her mom and grandmother. “The point of all this is we can all be together more, and we could be that happy family that we were trying to be when we first moved to America,” she says. “That’s kind of what I’m talking about in my new show. It’s a real thing that I’m figuring out right now.”

In the meanwhile, Okatsuka has signed her mom up for Instagram, the place she will see her daughter anytime she likes. “It’s taking a minute to teach her these things, but at least she can look at what I’m up to,” Okatsuka says. “You just click on my face, and you see what I’m up to that day. And that’s how she keeps up with me. We can do phone calls, but there’s nothing like being able to see your favorite person in your hand.”

In the end, Okatsuka revels within the alternative to attach with as many individuals as potential, wherever she could be on this planet. “That’s why I got into comedy, right? So that other people can feel seen, and I feel seen too.”