This is about an episode of "Tales of the Unusual" (Yonimo Kimyona Monogatari) starring Takehiko Ono, titled "The Dad Joke Prohibition."
The protagonist is a company department manager who loves dad jokes and constantly rolls his eyes from his subordinates with them. However, Japan's economic slump is blamed on the loss of efficiency caused by dad jokes, leading to the passage of a strict anti-dad joke bill that makes making puns a crime. Arrests are made over dad jokes, people are fired for telling them, and dad jokes intended to provoke the government are met with the threat of execution by a firing squad.
Completely disheartened, the protagonist watches as all of his fellow dad-joke-loving colleagues from his joining year get fired over puns. Though he tries to distract himself by burying himself in work dangled with the promise of a promotion, he can't stop thinking about dad jokes.
Looking to clear his mind, he goes out at night and finds a strange flyer with a rebus reading "Ta-ja-re-ie-masu" meaning "Dad jokes can be told here." Following the directions, he arrives at a place where a large group of middle-aged men are drinking and sharing dad jokes. Some of his former colleagues are there; it turns out to be the country's largest underground dad-joke syndicate, frequented even by doctors and members of parliament.
A former colleague tells him, "Let everyone hear your dad jokes." Encouraged by those words, the protagonist is about to deliver a pun in front of everyone when a squad of police raids the place, arresting the middle-aged men for violating the dad joke ban.
The protagonist manages to escape. As the raid is broadcast live on television, he catches the eye of an arrested colleague, who urges him to run away. As he heads home, memories of the fun days when people could freely trade dad jokes, along with his colleague's words, echo in his mind: "Let everyone hear your dad jokes." "Who stole the dad jokes... Who stole the dad jokes, who stole the dad jokes!"
Ignoring the police trying to stop him, and despite having his face broadcast across the nation, the protagonist continues to shout dad jokes with single-minded devotion. Immediately afterward, a gunshot rings out, piercing his chest. "Just kidding..." he whispers as he collapses.
When it first aired, I just thought it was a stupid story. But looking back at it now, Takehiko Ono's final delivery of a dad joke is strangely cool yet deeply tragic. It's a hopeless ending where he just gets shot and dies, and above all, in today's overly regulated and strict climate, this story is no longer something you can just laugh off.
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