Akane-banashi

Episodes 1-2

Akane-banashi's opening salvo of the anime captures the key essence of the manga while adding its unique touches. I'll fully admit that I am a bit biased in the show's favor—I love the manga, and I want the anime to succeed more than anything. Pushing Akane-banashi on everyone within arm's reach has been my life's mission for the past four years. As a wise philosopher once opined, maintaining the agenda is our top priority.

Thankfully, I don't have to work hard to impress upon you just how good this anime is.

The animation team at ZEXCS gets what Akane-banashi is about. It's about the rakugo—bringing to life these classic tales and imbuing them with a sense of physical presence as performance art and rich history in vivid recreation. The animation styles, visual palettes, artistic license, and musical cues all dance around one another to imply the ever-shifting time and place of these performances. Just like the audience in the show, we have to believe that we are both seated and listening to a performer, yet simultaneously transported to another place and time. We have to see each moment through half a dozen different lenses and perspectives without becoming too caught up in any one or too overwhelmed by the chaos. Yūki Suenaga and Takamasa Moue have found this balance every week for the past few years in the manga, and the team at ZEXCS achieves this flawlessly, too. It does my heart good to see everything brought to such vivid life.

The animation is very meticulous without being overbearing. There's a lot of detail in the clothing, minute hand movements, expressions, and all the finer points of human expression. It's really critical that these are done with such care, because they are how we understand our performers, as much as, if not more than, their actual performances. In much the same way that a poker game is as much about reading the players as it is about managing your hand and bets, these all-too-human tells are our window into the performers' state of mind.

Speaking of performers, the voice cast is phenomenal. The casting brings everyone to life and demands an extra level of performance from each cast member. They have to not only portray one role, but many as they take on the task of bringing these rakugo stories to life. They have to not only act, but act like someone acting, which is always a challenge. I'm glad to say that the cast manages this feat and then some, fully finding the characters' voices in everything from quiet, mundane human moments to bombastic performances on stage. You could close your eyes and get a feel for the events being portrayed, and that says it all.

Akane-banashi has been the best-kept secret in Shonen Jump for years—and if you're missing out on the anime too, you're really doing yourself a disservice.

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