Why Does Japan Love Columbo? An Investigation

Columbo has seen a modern renaissance in the last few years, a renewed popularity resulting from the effective formula, Peter Falk's timeless performance and its endurance through a modern lens: the queer community finding attraction in his untraditional masculinity, neurodivergent people seeing themselves in his flaws and feats, and leftists finding his law enforcement chronicles to be the farthest thing from real cops — he hates guns and only pursues rich murderers who killed for personal gain.

But, the series' current social media popularity is not a cult renewal, Columbo was big in its heyday. Even more than that, Columbo was an international cultural phenomenon. The series' popularity transcended its country of origin and became beloved in the 40+ countries it was broadcast in. However, one country in particular had a very special relationship with Lt. Columbo: Japan.

Japan loves Columbo — references and influence are splayed across manga, anime, and video games, and Emperor Hirohito himself was such a big fan of Columbo that one of the celebrities he requested to meet with during his 1975 trip to America was Peter Falk, who was unfortunately filming at the time and couldn't attend.

But why? Why is it specifically that Japan found the disheveled but brilliant detective so endearing? Like the great detective himself, I aim to get to the bottom of it, and I think it comes down to three main factors: Comedy, the Honkaku genre, and popular Japanese storytelling tropes/stylings.

Columbo originated as an episode of The Chevy Mystery Show titled “Enough Rope,” with the titular character originally played by Bert Freed. Freed was replaced by Thomas Mitchell when “Enough Rope,” was adapted into a stage play titled Prescription: Murder. Prescription: Murder was then adapted back into TV as a film starring Peter Falk, who would go on to portray the character in another made-for-TV movie, followed by the better-known TV series that ran for seven seasons from 1971-1978 (continuing in a revival from 1989-2003).

Only a year after it aired in America, Columbo began to broadcast in Japan, and the series was a hit, drawing over a fourth of all television viewers during its height. With the Japanese-language-exclusive novel adaptations of episodes that would follow a few years later, Columbo began to cement itself as a staple of Japanese pop culture.

Columbo was originally dubbed in Japanese by Asao Koike (replaced after his death by Tarō Ishida), an actor known for starring in yakuza movies and for being Gene Hackman's official Japanese dub voice. Koike depicted the frazzled detective a bit differently than Peter Falk — his gruff voice was made a bit younger and energetic, and there was more intelligence seeping through his feigned ignorance — but the core of the character remained, a character that Japan fell in love with.

But why? What turned Columbo from an American show broadcast in Japan to a character they loved so much they put him in Pepsi Trymax-E and Toyota Corolla ads? Well, they were sort of primed to love all his specific facets by their own art and pop culture.

There are three main factors to this case, three aspects of Japanese media that left them primed to love Columbo, one of them being, as one might expect, an existing love of mystery literature.

Prior to Columbo's international success, Sir Arthur Conan Doyel's legendary detective was the original international mystery fiction star, playing a major role in Japan's love of the genre. Sherlock Holmes was first brought to Japan in 1894 with a translation of “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” which was followed by further Sherlock translations as well as the mystery works of G. K. Chesterton and Edgar Allan Poe, all published in short magazines.

These magazines eventually began publishing Japanese original stories, including the works of Taro Hirau, better known by his pen name, Edogawa Ranpo ( 江戸川 乱歩 — a Kanji transliteration of Edgar Allan Poe). Ranpo is often credited as the creator of one of Japan's most popular literary genres, the Honkaku mystery, with one of his submitted works, “The Two-Sen Copper Coin.”

Honkaku, which translates to “orthodox,” is essentially a “mystery-driven mystery,” which is to say that, rather than focusing on thrills and twists often present in Western fiction, it's more focused on the satisfaction of solving locked door mysteries with logic and deduction. Think Death Note, where we know Light is Kira, so the intrigue comes from how L uses logic to hone in on Kira's identity. Already you can see where Columbo comes into play here — the killer is already revealed, so there is no twist ending; the main entertainment of the series comes from Columbo disarming the killer into revealing information and using logic to catch them, the core aspect of its “howcatchem” inverted detective story nature of the series.

But there's more to it than that, specifically in the works of Seishi Yokomizo, creator of one of Japan's most popular characters, Kosuke Kindaichi. Kindaichi first appeared in The Honjin Murders, a Honkaku locked room novel published in 1946, and he would go on to appear in 76 further books as well as various film, manga, and anime adaptations.

Kindaichi is known for his unkempt state of dress, lack of fashion, messy, tangled hair (due to scratching his head too often), signature shabby coat, and overall eccentric nature. But, under this disheveled appearance lies a brilliant detective mind. Kindaichi is more or less Japan's Columbo before Columbo existed, messy and eccentric on the outside, sharp and intelligent on the inside.

Kosuke Kindaichi brings me to the second part of this perfect storm, comedy. Kindaichi is very much a caricature, a humorously disheveled man with tics and mannerisms that give the character a comedic aura. Columbo is similar in this regard, disheveled, messy, and uncultured. So it makes sense, given that exaggerated appearance and performance are major cornerstones of Japanese comedy and performance, that Columbo as a character clicked with Japanese audiences.

Japanese humor's penchant for exaggeration is derived from traditional theater like kabuki and rakugo. In kabuki, the dialogue, posing, physicality, makeup, and costumes are all based around exaggeration. In fact, physical acting in kabuki can be so exaggerated and stylized that it can be indiscernible from dancing, and a majority of actor characterization is done via their elaborate, exaggerated makeup. Rakugo is rather pared down by comparison, consisting of just one performer on stage telling a story and playing the various characters within it. As such, this art relies on exaggeration on the performer's part to differentiate the voices and mannerisms of the different characters.

As previously stated, Columbo roughly checks these boxes. Though “exaggerated” might not be the accurate term to describe Falk's performance, Columbo is certainly a bold, distinct character. Not outrageous and out there per se, but repetitively distinct — you know how Columbo is because his mannerisms, speech patterns, phrasing, and performance are cemented into the performance, becoming iconic aspects of the character. He has tics ingrained into his characterization in a manner similar to Japanese comedic acting, which has also found its way into anime characterization.

Additionally, consider some of the common comedic situations Columbo finds himself in: a witness doesn't think Columbo is a real detective (sometimes he is even mistaken for a homeless man) due to his shabby appearance, a high-class killer educates Columbo on a subject he is heavily ignorant about, Columbo talks to his disobedient but loveable dog, Columbo is often overly tired, hungry, or bothered by some ailment, etc. There is also exaggeration in how his appearance and informality clash with the rich killers and their elegant environment, a form of built-in comedy for the series.

Furthermore, the format of Columbo is essentially a detective version of manzai comedy. Manzai is a popular style of Japanese stand-up consisting of two performers, the boke and the tsukkomi. The boke is a confused, forgetful, and unintelligent character who makes incorrect statements that the knowledgeable straight-man tsukkomi comedically corrects (often with slapstick punishment). Columbo is essentially the Bboke, unknowledgeable in both the details of the crime and whatever hobby, career, or affinity the killer is into, asking for details and/or purposely saying incorrect statements so that the killer, standing in the tsukkomi role, can correct him with information that Columbo then turns around and uses to pin the crime on them.

Of course, there is no slapstick violence in how the killers correct and inform Columbo, but they talk down to him all the same, condescending the lowly detective who could never possibly catch them. Which brings me to the final piece, the way Columbo is perceived by killers.

It's often debated whether or not Columbo's disheveled, bumbling nature is an act or not. It runs in line with Japanese comedic acting, sure, but is it actually an act by the Lieutenant to disarm suspects so they feed him the information he needs? Or is he both brilliant and forgetful? Personally, seeing my ADHD in Columbo, I tend to read it as both; real, but he leans into it to disarm people. Regardless of the specifics, Columbo's outer shell hiding a brilliant mind runs very parallel to popular Japanese storytelling tropes.

You don't have to look far to find a shonen anime where the protagonist is underestimated, overlooked, or otherwise looked down upon by their arrogant or snobbish opponents, only for the protagonist to prove themselves immensely skilled in their specific field, be it martial arts, cooking, or volleyball. Though shonen's genre codifiers (manga like Dragon Ball and its successors) came after Columbo hit Japan, these “underestimated but skilled” conventions predate the genre. Kan Shimozawa's blind swordsman Zatoichi — overlooked by opponents due to his disability, only to demolish them in one fell swoop — is just one example that comes to mind, and the aforementioned Kosuke Kindaichi fits the bill as well.

To sum it all up, the conventions, particularities, and traditional tropes of Japanese storytelling, comedy, and culture coincidentally primed them to love a character like Columbo, and love him they did. On top of the mentioned Pepsi Trymax-E and Toyota ads, Columbo also has his own Japanese-exclusive guidebook full of illustrations, comics, and diagrams detailing his clothes, mannerisms, detective skills, dog, car, and everything else there is to know about the series. Japan is also the only place you can get the full series on Blu-ray (including the revival series and specials), which comes in a real cigar box.

Additionally, Columbo has cameoed, been parodied, and/or referenced in Japanese media like Case Closed, Lupin III: Part II (wherein Columbo's skateboarding detective son, Bolonco, shows up to help Zenigata on a case), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Sonic X, and much, much more. But it's more than just references, Columbo's influence can be felt in video games like the Ace Attorney series — in fact, creator Shu Takumi used to record Columbo episodes onto a tape recorder and listen to them in his room as a kid, and it shows. The howcatchem format of Columbo is featured in some of the games' tutorial first cases, the Honkaku satisfaction of deducing the truth is built into the gameplay, and the bumbling Detective Gumshoe wears a shabby coat much like Columbo.

There's also two different Columbo-inspired series in Japan, Furuhata Ninzaburō and Columbo of Shinano. Furuhata Ninzaburō is a Columbo-like howcatchem where viewers are shown the crime and cover-up and then introduced to the titular Furuhata, an obnoxious detective who basically annoys suspects until they give him the information he needs to catch them, which is, you know, Columbo's whole deal. Columbo of Shinano is a series of books and TV movies about a detective who acts like Columbo, and I don't mean he is similar to Columbo, I mean he is a detective who deliberately acts like a famous TV detective, Lt. Columbo. A Japanese franchise showing the country's love of Columbo by being about someone who emulates the character is quite possibly the best Japanese love letter to Columbo I can think of.

Simply put, Columbo is not only beloved by Japan but the series and characters are major Japanese cultural touchstones. Columbo transcends borders, language, and cultural senses of humor. That's goddamn beautiful.