Hatsu

In Hunter X Hunter, Hatsu is when you use your Nen to attack. In improv, Hatsu is when you go for the laugh.

Let’s recap:

First, we have Yen. Yen is the currency of Improv. It is a magical energy that represents the combined attention of the audience and the players. It is everything that everybody in the room can remember, and see in their mind’s eye, since the show began.

Second, we have Ten. Ten is state of deep listening and soft focus. Ten prevents all of your Yen- your ideas, your energy, your fuel for your scenes- from evaporating.

Third, we have Ren. Ren is a state of creation, of gathering your strength. Ren generates massive amounts of Yen. Ren is when you burn your soul to fill the stage with ideas, characters, relationships- your platform.

Finally, we have Hatsu. Hatsu is using all of the Yen that you have mustered with Ren, and retained with Ten, to strike! To make the audience laugh, cry, and cheer.

The Rhythm of Ren and Hatsu

You must use Ren and Hatsu separately, back and forth.

We have terms for using Ren and Hatsu at the same time. For example, “going for the joke,” or “trying to be funny.” Ren is introducing new ideas, and Hatsu is using your ideas to get an audience response. If you make a joke in a scene, you are casting your Yen directly into the audience, the moment you create it. It gets a laugh! But rarely a big one. And you haven’t built anything. That energy is immediately gone, and your scene is no better for it.

The stronger technique is to separate Ren from Hatsu. Fill the stage with Yen using Ren, then use the vast amounts of energy you’ve gathered all at once, with Hatsu.

Let’s look at some common frameworks for scenes, through the lens of Ren and Hatsu.

If you’re going to make people laugh, you’ll have to make them laugh about something. Every theater is touching a different part of this elephant, and providing different paths that resonate with different people. Where they all meet is, you build together, then laugh together.

Ren is the setup, Hatsu is the punchline. Ren is tension, Hatsu is release. Yin and freakin’ yang.

Patience and precision

You only have so much time onstage. You only have so much Yen- so many ideas- to play with. To be the strongest improviser you can be, you must learn to use these resources efficiently.

What is the cost of impatience?

Perhaps you’ve been in a scene where an improviser attacked the very first, even slightly unusual thing. Maybe someone stumbled over their words while initiating. Maybe someone took slightly longer than usual setting up a chair. Maybe a character has a funny name. If the players lack patience, someone will use Hatsu immediately! They will make a joke about the mumbling, or the chair, or the name, and suddenly that’s all you have to work with in your scene. You quickly run out of Yen to work with, and you functionally have to start your scene over again, building from nothing.

What is the cost of imprecision?

Imagine a scene in a doctor’s office, a woman is getting an ultrasound. The doctor and patient are developing their relationship, the doctor has been with the patient through the entire term of the pregnancy. They discuss whether the patient wants to know the baby’s gender, or if they want to wait, or— Suddenly! An improviser leaps off the back line, and starts crawling between the patient’s legs. She’s giving birth right now! This is a big move, tons of Yen is flying, it gets a big laugh. But when the laughter subsides… what were they talking about, again?

I use this specific example because I’ve seen it a lot. Not the abstract idea- I’ve literally seen improvisers crawl between each other’s legs as a baby being born, a dozen times. It always gets a laugh, it always gets edited shortly after, and I always feel unsatisfied.

The problem is, you can do a crawl-between-the-legs birth in any pregnancy scene. And all the Yen onstage that’s not just “somebody is pregnant” gets lost. If I’m in the scene, I feel like the person who made the move wasn’t listening very closely, if all they apparently heard was “somebody is pregnant”.

The best move is the one you can only make now. Ideally, it uses the whole scene. If the move would work in any scene, it’s probably just a joke.

Be patient. Let everyone use Ren for a moment, to build up lots and lots of energy. Then, be precise. Stike with a move that uses as much of the scene as possible, and get the laugh that everybody talks about on the way home.

[1]: This technique is so advanced we haven’t gotten to the Yen corollary yet. Can you believe they teach this in 201??