He Thinks He Has the Worst Breath in Japan, So He Entered 'Breath Sumo' to Prove It

What's going on

Detective! Knight Scoop is a long-running variety show from Osaka where viewers send in requests and comedians playing "detectives" go out to help. This request came from a 27-year-old man in Hyogo who was already a familiar face. He had appeared on the show before as "the man whose behind-the-ears smell is off the charts," and ever since, people keep asking to sniff behind his ears. During one of those sniffs, someone told him his mouth might actually be worse. Coworkers had said much the same thing, and one called it the most powerful smell they had ever encountered.

So he began to wonder whether he might have the worst breath in all of Japan, and asked the show to let him prove it by going up against other people with notoriously bad breath. The format they landed on is "breath sumo": two challengers face off at close range and breathe into each other's faces until one of them can't take it. As viewers were quick to point out, the contest tests defense as much as offense.

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