It’s time for a series about Rakugo. It’s not an art that I was familiar with but essentially it is about telling a story where you play all of the roles. There are not elaborate costumes or any big special effects. You have to pull everything off on your own, including playing any instruments if needed. Having a whole series around this could be tricky since you’re going to need to write a bunch of stories and convincing characters who can pull off all of the roles. I’d say the show does a pretty good job of it. Rakugo is probably not something I’d be very interested in watching in real life, but anime adds that extra pizazz.

The story follows a girl named Akane who is really interested in Rakugo. She grew up idolizing her father’s Rakugo but one day he is suddenly expelled from the profession entirely and his career as a pro died. Akane has spent the last 6 years practicing her craft and aims to prove that her father’s skills were real. She will have to go through many challenges if she wants to be the best, but she is determined to prove herself.

The show definitely amps up the drama with her father to the point where you may even think that he’s dead for a while there. That may have been a little too dark for this one though, the motivation of wanting to prove the critics wrong is good enough. The series is pretty realistic all the way through by also explaining how her father could have joined a different master but just chose not to. It would have been hard to blacklist someone from this career entirely after all but it came down to pride. He didn’t want to succeed in any other way which is completely his decision but honestly to me that just means it wasn’t his life.

Akane feels like someone who would keep on fighting no matter what she had to do. Switching masters is something she would never want, but she wouldn’t just let her career get short changed like that. As someone even brings up, the guy who expelled her father wasn’t even his direct master. I feel like the dad could have pushed back on that. In general I’m just not a really big fan of this guy. I’d also like for him to be way more present in Akane’s life.

The show goes into this and he has his reasons but I didn’t think they were good enough. I’m a much bigger fan of Akane’s mom who is always there to support her. Her role is not huge since there’s not as much she could do here but it’s enough to know that Akane has her in the corner and is someone to talk to.

Akane is fairly young but since she has been training since childhood, it makes sense that she is really good. I was glad that the show really acknowledged this instead of making her a rookie for some reason. There are still plenty of different ways to make challenges for her and the show handles this well. She is absolutely a prodigy but there are other prodigies around as well so the competition will always be fierce.

Akane speaks up for herself and is a very fiery character. While she sometimes does have to play nice because of how formal the environment is, I give her full credit for not just letting the others roll over her. She also doesn’t stay down about anything for too long. All in all, she’s definitely a standout character and one of the best ones in the show. The cast is already getting pretty large with characters being set up for season 2 but so far they’ve mainly been good.

Issho works well as the main villain as well. He certainly does believe in protecting the future of Rakugo and so for him expelling the father wasn’t personal. (Welllllllll future seasons may change that framing a little bit) I don’t think his goals always make sense though. For example he talks about how the art is completely dying and they need to inject new life into it. Then it would make sense to keep as many pros as possible right? Publicly expelling a bunch of trainees and scaring the rest seems like it is absolutely backwards compared to that. Issho’s excuse is that it would water down the sport but that’s just hard to buy into.

Still, the show makes sure not to treat him like some 2 bit criminal. He’s still nice to the press and maintains a solid public figure. The guy even jokes with a reporter that he has to be nice because otherwise who is going to laugh at his stories? Rakugo isn’t always for making the audience laugh but that’s definitely the case in a majority of the stories. So that expelling moment was controversial and a mask off type of instance but it’s not who he usually is. I look forward to his continued rivalry with Akane. Rivalry might be the wrong word but they will certainly be going against each other.

Shiguma is another one of the big Rakugo masters and so he ends up being the one who trains Akane. He’s a bit mixed about this and didn’t want to be taking on any more apprentices but couldn’t really turn her down given the context. He’s a nice guy who doesn’t usually make a bunch of waves but may have to change that now. As the youngest member of his school, Akane is spoiled by all of the characters. If anyone goes after her, it’s not Shiguma’s job to protect her and he made that promise to her mother.

Another character in Akane’s corner is Jumbo. He used to be a bully back when she was growing up but he did mature over the years. Now he does his best to support her dreams and is always there with a kind word. He even talks to her teacher in an effort to help change her mind and let Akane pursue her dreams. He’s a character who doesn’t appear a whole lot but he really does make a difference in these small ways which I appreciated.

Then we have the teacher, Machiko. She has a small but important role here as well. It makes sense to be skeptical about Akane’s decision not to continue with school and to become a Rakugo player instead. There are so many ways that could go badly and Akane is young to be making such a permanent life decision. Still, Machiko keeps an open mind and ends up helping quite a lot.

From Akane’s teammates, Koguma is my least favorite. I do want to underscore that this doesn’t make him a bad character inherently but he’s just less interesting than the others. His gimmick is that he’s usually timid but gets really bold when he’s on stage. He also likes to tell stories by thinking about the lore behind them. So nothing bad there but I feel like Akane has probably already surpassed him.

Hikaru is one of Akane’s rivals and she does have a leg up in being a voice actress. She is used to throwing her voice around and doing all kinds of impressions. That’s an incredibly useful talent to have at her disposal. Some of the others try to use it as a diss but they’re just coping. Akane has the edge in experience so that makes for a pretty good contrast between the two of them. I definitely look forward to her appearing more.

Karashi is Akane’s other big rival and he likes telling a more modern twist on the classic Rakugo stories. It’s an incredibly good idea because telling the same stories over and over is really not a good idea. It’s got to be one of the reasons that Rakugo is dying. Particularly since the stories are all ancient and the characters don’t talk like normal people. It just doesn’t end up making for a particularly engaging product. Karashi is rather full of himself but that’s how a rival should be, so he’s definitely a compelling character.

Kaisei is one of those future rivals. Right now he is so far ahead of Akane that you can’t call it a true rivalry but down the road you can see how they would be fighting it out. He is a bit of an overbearing character who really gets up in your face and he gets away with that because of his talent. We only get to see him perform in a vague way so it’s a bit hard to say just how good he is but based on how he’s presented, he’s the best of the younger performers.

Maikeru hasn’t done much yet but he’s the more senior member of Akane’s teammates. So he clearly has a lot of ability and will be someone that Akane is not able to surpass so easily. Kyouji is another senior member but he gets a much bigger role than the others. He essentially takes on the role of being Akane’s hands on mentor. He walks her through the basics that she wouldn’t have encountered in practice and encourages her to keep up her grades as well. He doesn’t want her to sacrifice things needlessly which is important.

Kyouji is a well balanced character although he doesn’t strike me as being super talented. Naturally that’s not the case but his Rakugo just feels ordinary. Likewise we have Guriko who also helps to tutor Akane but he doesn’t seem to be immensely talented. This is actually building up to a plot point though so that works out. It is rough to be surpassed by someone who just joined the clan so I can get why that would be annoying. That’s the power of a prodigy.

Now as the show went on there are two questions that will come to mind. The first is, how will the show manage to show how skilled each Rakugo master is? The title intentionally avoids showing Issho or the others giving their full performances while we are still watching the trainees going through the motions. That said, it’s just a bit hard to picture how different you can really show the art of Rakugo. The series will have to get real creative there.

The second question is, how come the characters are all stuck to using the same stories over and over? I guess it’s answered to an extent with how Issho really loves tradition but then of course the art is dying out. Imagine if you really love watching a cooking show but they always make the same 10 items? It’s why I really liked Karashi because he had the right idea. Throwing a modern twist into these stories is a great way to get to the audience. It’s something that I’d like to see other characters doing. Maybe not making it modern per say, but switching up some details.

The animation is pretty solid throughout the show. It’s not like you’re going to be able to show off a whole lot here since there aren’t fight scenes but the colors are on point. The character designs work well and you can tell that a lot of attention was put into it. The soundtrack is a little less impressive. Not bad but the opening really didn’t click for me. The themes during the show are good though. So I wouldn’t call this one super memorable but it’s not bad by any means.

This show also shows how important writing is in getting you invested. I’m personally not all that into Rakugo even after watching the series. I tend to prefer the moments around the actual performances because I just enjoy competition. Give me all the tournaments and the trash talking around them. The Rakugo itself just seems a little too basic. I would really need the other actors around because one person trying to play them all would just start to feel a bit cheesy to me. Like I would be cracking a grin even when I’m not supposed to be. The stories aren’t painful or anything, they’re just not super engaging so far.

Overall, I definitely look forward to seeing where the next season goes here. There are going to be a lot of tournaments as Akane tries to move up the ranks and that always means more rivals to overcome. The show has a very pleasant vibe to it and so the episodes go by quickly. It’s definitely going to run into some challenges on how to make the fights stay interesting/how to increase the power levels and so I want to see how that’s handled. You don’t need to be a big fan of Rakugo in order to enjoy this one so that’s a solid credit to the show.

Overall 7/10