Kyuzo is an Android comedian and the host of Yotsubashi's Treasure, one of the Garden's favorite game shows, airing three times a week on Channel 18. A mellow and easygoing person, Kyuzo has a knack for subtle humor, accentuating his punchlines with quiet pauses, facial expression and small hand gestures- it's not uncommon for humor to be lost on Androids, but as an Aoba droid Kyuzo's got a good sense for entertaining falsehoods and how best to present them. He appreciates his fans and tries to make himself accessible to them, although he loves posing himself in photo ops as if he's there under duress or like he didn't really want to be there. His fans are in on the bit, though, and they wouldn't have it any other way. It's part of Kyuzo's charm.
While he's done stand-up and performed in TV shows in the past, Kyuzo is best known for his role as the host of Yotsubashi's Treasure, where he plays the titular Captain Yotsubashi, an early explorer from the dawn of the space age dressed "in the style of 19th century starfarers". He has a scar on his face that is very clearly drawn on in marker, and every episode it's drawn on a different angle in a different spot- this is never directly acknowledged by anyone throughout any episode of the program. The show goes like this: Captain Yotsubashi is a charismatic explorer who is also somewhat forgetful, he's amassed a great fortune of treasure from his adventures across the Sol system, but he can't remember where he hid it and so he needs Your Help to find it. In each episode four contestants are dressed in similar anachronistic 19th-century starfaring garb, color-coded Red, Yellow, Blue and Green, and are given a series of hazardous obstacle challenges they must overcome in order to find Yotsubashi's Treasure and win a substantial cash prize. Their uniforms are tailored to them by costuming and they get to bring the outfits home after the show has been filmed.
When an episode opens Captain Yotsubashi introduces himself, warms up the audience and presents the main idea of the show: he's got a lot of treasure, he just can't remember where he left it. To help him find it, he's recruited a new batch of scallywags: Captain Yotsubashi then introduces the episode's four contestants, interviewing them one at a time, asking their names and what they do for work or where they go for school- one of the major features of Captain Yotsubashi's character is that he's very encouraging but not really confident in any of his crew's abilities, telling them that their career's skillset will be very useful on their grand treasure hunt before silently mugging for the camera like there's no chance in the universe this guy's gonna make it. Once the contestants are introduced, it's on to the fun part!
The way Yotsubashi's Treasure is structured is there are four major sections: three obstacle course challenges preceded by a trivia section and then one final course for one lucky contestant to challenge. Being a show about an early space explorer, Yotsubashi's Treasure is themed heavily around Solar astronomy and knowledge of the planets, moons and celestial bodies that make up our worlds. To help Captain Yotsubashi remember where he might have stashed his treasure contestants are given a clue or a vague description, saying he remembers visiting someplace "with icy volcanoes" or "that looked like a lumpy potato", or "running from big creatures" or "eating a kind of fruit he found there". Based on the vague clue contestants then have to write down where they think Captain Yotsubashi is thinking of, and they're awarded points if they guessed right, and if they guessed wrong Captain Yotsubashi gives them an arbitrary number of points based on how much he liked their answer. The trivial sections are always connected to the theme of the physical challenges that follow them, giving the show a vaguely educational bent. The real fun of Yotsubashi's Treasure, however, is the challenge courses themselves.
The show has a few obstacle challenges prepared that long-time viewers will become familiar with, and each episode shuffles which challenges are presented for this batch of contestants. The first challenge is always set as a free-for-all, where all four contestants compete at the same time, to help set an initial point distribution. The second challenge is handled as a 2 vs 2 team endeavor, and the final challenge is a one-by-one attempt where contestants are awarded points based on their times. They may find themselves clamoring up slippery icy slopes, navigating a maze of poorly-lit tunnels, finding their way up treacherous climbing walls, dodging falling boulders, hopping across stone-flecked rivers of lava, swinging on vines, stepping across fallen logs, riding mechanical creatures or other similar sorts of clumsy or awkward hazards. The thrill of watching a contestant master a course is enhanced by all the unsuccessful attempts that precede them. As the host, Captain Yotsubashi is always on hand to provide commentary on an attempt, keeping up his encouraging-but-doubtful persona and making fun jokes about a contestant's blunderous failure. For each of the first three challenges a winning contestant will find a small piece of Yotsubashi's Treasure, which ends up being some small door prize provided by one of the show's sponsors. The real prize comes at the very end.
After three rounds of obstacle course challenges and three rounds of trivia to shake up the point distribution, the contestant with the most points earns enough of Captain Yotsubashi's trust to take on the final challenge: Yotsubashi's Vault. A more compact and dense arrangement of rooms, Yotsubashi's Vault is filled with trap doors, rotating walls, spinning turnstiles, rope ladders, monkey bars, small puzzles and tumbles into padded pits of foam rocks. The final contestant has three minutes to make it through Yotsubashi's Vault and find his treasure before security protocols seal them in "forever"! If they're successful then Captain Yotsubashi will say he never doubted them, he's always had faith, and he'll share a "small portion" of his treasure with them, which translates as a substantial sum of credits. If they fail the final challenge then their reward is an all-expense paid trip to a beautiful tourist hotspot, playing off the worldly theming of the show, but the cash prize is what most contestants are really after.
Kyuzo likes to play up his role as Captain Yotsubashi when the cameras are rolling, but after a show he'll always follow up with contestants, give them earnest praise and make sure they're feeling alright after the bumps and falls they took during the program. The studio usually films three episodes a day, but the tireless Android has plenty of stamina to give each episode a fresh and genuine performance, with a warm and earnest meeting with contestants after each run, usually while the set and obstacles are being reassembled for the next shoot. Fans love a chance to pose with Kyuzo in their Yotsubashi's Treasure outfits and have their picture taken, and while Kyuzo is very genuine when he's off the set, he still loves to smile and wince for the camera. He just thinks that bit is too good not to pull every time.