Descending Stories: Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū

Episode 1

It's finally time – 2016's second most beloved show about the intersection of art, sexuality, and society has returned! Jokes about ice boys aside, Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu overcame its obscure subject material (a historical form of Japanese stand-up) to become one of the most acclaimed anime of last year. It soared on the strength of its storytelling, which used a tragic love triangle to look back on Showa-era Japan, as well as make observations on the nature of life, art, and the passage of time. While it's far less mainstream than last season's gay romance behemoth, this show aims even higher in its artistic goals and achieved both a more complex and solid narrative. All this has made Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu's return one of the most anticipated parts of the Winter 2017 season, and I'm happy to report that this premiere lives up to the high expectations, setting this story up for a heartrending final arc.

To quickly recap, the first season mostly consists of the current Yakumo's life story, told in flashback and bookended by the 1970s material that will make up this second half. The first half was a romantic tragedy involving rakugo performer Yakumo Yurakutei (then known as Kikuhiko), his best friend Sukeroku (who was also a performer), and a woman named Miyokichi. Kikuhiko was in love with Sukeroku but unable to act on it (or maybe even recognize his feelings) due to homosexuality's unspeakable status at the time. Miyokichi, meanwhile, was an aging sex worker who fell in love with Kikuhiko, mostly because he didn't treat her like a disposable object. When it became clear that Kikuhiko would never return her affections, she ran off with Sukeroku as revenge. The fallout of these events would lead to Sukeroku and Miyokichi's deaths and leave Kikuhiko a frigid, emotional shell of a human being. This part of the tragedy is explicitly fueled by the rigidity of gender roles, which restricted both character's options in ways that eliminated their prospects for happiness and caused them to self-destruct. From opposite sides of the divide, Kikuhiko and Miyokichi both chafed against the walls of what society allowed them, and they took these frustrations out on each other.

Kikuhiko was left raising Sukeroku's and Miyokichi's daughter, Konatsu. As a parent, Kikuhiko constantly undercut his new child's ambitions to perform rakugo, thus forcing the values that ruined his life onto another generation. We return to the action in the 1980s, when Yakumo (a venerable old master) and Konatsu (a shamefully unwed mother) are still on bad terms, and Yotaro (Yakumo's only apprentice, taken in due to his resemblance toward Sukeroku) is trying to pick up the pieces. For complex thematic reasons that are too lengthy to recap here (the interpersonal triangles have a lot to do with the nature of rakugo as an art form as well as social change – read the previous reviews if you haven't already), rakugo's fate now rests on this one old guy getting over his issues. Can Yotaro get through to him in time? Or will Yakumo take rakugo with him into that good night?

In line with the timeskip, this episode largely consists of the characters' ruminations on mortality. It's the '80s now, and rakugo – with its relatively slow pace and emphasis on live performance – isn't exactly getting any more popular. Yotaro has just finished his apprenticeship, graduating to the rank of shin'ichi, or master, and inheriting the stage name Sukeroku. Konatsu has had her baby, whose father remains unknown, and she's wavering on Yotaro's offer of marriage. Meanwhile, Yakumo has been promoted to the head of the Rakugo Association and appears even more visibly aged. (By my calculations, he should be in his 60s now, since he appeared to be a teenager during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.) The Showa Era, which ends in 1989, should be almost over. Time is running out for the show's subject matter, but its cast's conflicts are hardly resolved.

This episode can best be split between three conversations that Yotaro has on the future of rakugo. The first is with an old acquaintance, Mangetsu. The son of a performer from Kyoto, he appeared briefly in the show before, but you might not remember him. He was a child at the time, so his appearance this week basically works as a character introduction. (If you want to get technical, Mangetsu did feature extensively in the double-length director's cut of the first episode, but he was cut out of the broadcast version. Yes, there's a double-length cut of a premiere that was already 48 minutes long. There's no version available in English yet, but you can find a synopsis of the excised material here.)

When Mangetsu was younger, he was desperate to apprentice under Yakumo, but he got so disheartened by rejection that he distanced himself from the art. Now he's making it rich off of the bubble economy. He reveals that the rakugo scene in Kyoto has basically shut down, and he doesn't expect the one in Tokyo to last much longer. It just can't compete with variety shows, manzai routines, and other modern forms of comedy. Yotaro rebukes him for this. He insists that rakugo will survive because it's not just about laughter but also empathy, which is timeless. Apparently, Yotaro got this line from Yakumo and believes it unquestioningly. Mangetsu calls him naïve, and they head off to watch Yakumo perform.

The second conversation is with another new character, Higuchi Eisuke. An important art critic, Higuchi admires Yotaro's rakugo and has resolved to become his patron. He's been a fan of rakugo since childhood and finds its decline disheartening. As it turns out, he even tried to become Yakumo's apprentice once. (Observant viewers will recognize him as the kid he chased off in episode ten. This 1980s material has all been pretty solidly foreshadowed.) While they're chilling at a geisha house, he gives Yotaro a lecture on the nature of popular art, which includes the theory that an art form will only remain contemporary for around 50 years or so. Any longer than that, and it'll transition into a historical form of interest mostly to specialists, rather than a general audience. But rakugo has been around for 300 years, meaning that there's both something special about it and that it's far past due for obsoletion. Eventually, he makes Yotaro a proposal.

Right away, it's apparent that Mangetsu and Higuchi are supposed to be foils for one another. They're both spurned apprentices of Yakumo who express a mixture of curiosity and resentment toward the weirdo that he eventually chose to teach. The difference between them is that while Mangetsu rejects rakugo in its decline by choosing to do nothing but savor its final moments, Higuchi isn't willing to declare the medium dead. Instead, he wants to work with Yotaro toward the form's revival by adapting its traditions to modern sensibilities. His example is the tradition of blood inheritance, implying the system's patriarchal structure and slavish adherence to a canon of routines. At the end of all this, Higuchi proposes that he and Yotaro write new routines – an act that the traditionalist Yakumo will later describe as heresy. Ultimately, Higuchi's idea – that tradition and innovation should coexist – is exactly what Sukeroku said when he and Yakumo made their pact all those years ago. Yotaro agrees to this and leaves excitedly.

The final scene is Yotaro confronting Yakumo over his intentions, bringing up both his deal with Higuchi and his intent to marry Konatsu. On top of that, Yotaro wants Yakumo to live with them so that they can be a family and start healing some of the wounds created by Sukeroku's death. This is how Yotaro (correctly) interpreted the three commandments that Yakumo gave him at the beginning of his apprenticeship: not to die before Yakumo, to memorize both his and Sukeroku's routines, and to ensure the longevity of rakugo. Yakumo coldly brushes him off, but it comes off like the old man being defensive against a perceptive reading of his vulnerabilities. He then proceeds to claim the exact opposite of what he said all those years ago – that he intends for rakugo to die with him.

Yakumo is all-out stating that he will attempt his own sort of lover's suicide with the medium of rakugo itself. Yes, he uses the words “lover's suicide,” making this a title drop. Yakumo, as rakugo's sole remaining legend, has done a lot to foster the medium's current stagnation by refusing to take measures toward its survival. After being burned by the Miyokichi affair, Yakumo swore off human connection and resolved to wait it out for the grave, taking rakugo with him as a consolation prize. This is, of course, an act of spiteful, selfish destruction akin to Miyokichi's “theft” of Sukeroku. Rakugo doesn't “belong” to Yakumo – it belongs to all the people who love it, to the culture, and to humankind as a whole. Thus, this season will be about prying Yakumo's bitter old heart open again before it's too late – for both him and the artform.

If there's anyone who can do that, it's puppy-human Yotaro, a person who gives affection so openly that it's almost a superpower. He's already getting through to Konatsu, who's similarly closed off. When she nearly backs out of his marriage offer, he responds with a sincere profession of care – absent of pity for her status as an unwed mother – and that seems to convince her otherwise. Really, the one thing that makes me worry for Yotaro is that he might be trying to replace Sukeroku – an inherently doomed endeavor that will just leave everyone unsatisfied. If the show wants to make Yotaro into more than (an admittedly adorable) manic pixie dream convict, it'll see him break free from his role as a replacement Sukeroku. For now, however, Yotaro declares that he won't let Yakumo go through with his planned demise, shocking the old man with his innocent candor.

All in all, this second season premiere was Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū in characteristically excellent form. Throughout one tightly written narrative, it continues to tackle a bunch of huge ideas at once – painting a portrait of an era, a critique of patriarchy, a rumination on the purpose of art, and a reflection on mortality all at once. Prestige dramas are a rare genre for anime, but Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu deserves to be placed alongside acclaimed US television shows like Mad Men or The Sopranos. The Showa era may be almost over in this show, but it looks like the story has just begun in earnest.

Grade: A

Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.