Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū

Episode 12

This episode begins with painful foreshadowing when Kikuhiko throws a pair of drumsticks out the window. Sukeroku catches them, leaving his body – for an aching second – perched over the ravine. We've reached That Moment, foreshadowed throughout the entire series and included in the title – the watery lover's suicide that'll punctuate this tragedy and mark the transition into the 70s timeline.

We begin with some insight into Sukeroku. It turns out that, over the course of his extended absence from the theater, his relationship with the audience has changed. Previously, his rakugo burst forth seemingly without impediment. He performed out of ambition and a natural impulse to entertain. Now, it seems like there's a wall between him and the audience. It doesn't come as easily anymore. Not that it's turned him into a bad performer! The routine he delivers, Shibahama, about a deadbeat husband who is reformed by his wife's deception, is the best we've ever seen from him. It's just that his performance come to resemble Kikuhiko's somewhat, both in subject matter and his style's expressive purpose. For the first time that we see onscreen, he performs a woman who isn't a bawdy caricature, and he achieves an emotion that isn't raucous laughter – in this case, sorrow at the wife's situation and relief when the husband reforms. It's clearly influenced by his life with Miyokichi. For the first time, Sukeroku appears to be using his rakugo as a space for processing his feelings, like Kikuhiko does. We've never seen Sukeroku self-reflective before, so this feels like a real transformation. At the same time, he also chafes under Kikuhiko's hints that he should inherit the Yakumo name. He even says that Kikuhiko has surpassed him, and he doesn't respond to Kikuhiko's suggestion that he, Miyokichi, and Konatsu come back to Tokyo with him. So Sukeroku does not respond to Kikuhiko's fantasy of a domestic threesome – a warning sign that Kikuhiko ignores.

Kikuhiko's performance tells a story based on the platitude “all men are into women.” Given Kikuhiko's total disinterest in the opposite sex, we know this statement to be an untrue assumption. This foreshadows that Kikuhiko's immature assumptions about sex and romance will have fatal consequences by the end of this very episode. He assumes that Miyokichi and Sukeroku will be into the ménage-a-trois domestic fantasy he's planned out for them. In this scenario, Kikuhiko and Sukeroku would live out their rakugo dream back in Tokyo, while Miyokichi would be content with a stable domestic situation alongside two boy toys (one will play her husband, the other the accommodating object of her lust). On paper, it's perfect. The problem is that Suke and Miyo have their own pesky desires that interfere with all this. By trying to impose this dream on them without their consent (Kiku turns to emotional manipulation first, rather than just asking for their compliance outright), he's denying the fact that it probably won't work out and stirring up an even more toxic emotional situation for everyone.

That's when Miyokichi appears. She snuck in for Kikuhiko's performance, but left during Sukeroku's. Now she's arrived to confront Kiku-san. They meet up in a distant room, and she says that she's grateful Kikuhiko has finally arrived to “save” her. We know that's a delusion on her part, but Kikuhiko is convinced that he needs her on board for Sukeroku to come back to Tokyo with him. So Kikuhiko, for the first time, accepts her sexual entreaties, kissing her.

At first, I was confused by Kikuhiko's sexual advance on Miyokichi. It seemed out of character considering how little interest he'd expressed in her before, to the extent that he was willing to destroy their friendship over it. However, it started making sense when I looked at it as part of the ploy to bring Sukeroku back to Tokyo. As Kikuhiko sees it, Sukeroku's feelings of responsibility for Miyokichi are the main obstacle to his return. But if Kikuhiko were to also tempt her back with the promise of his own sweet booty, then problem solved, right? They'd settle into a ménage-a-trois where each person is satisfied by the compliance of the object of their desires. Konatsu would have two daddies AND a mommy. Polyamory solves everything!

But Miyokichi has other ideas. She doesn't want anything else to do with Sukeroku or even Konatsu, who's so much like her father. To Miyo, it seems like she's finally gotten possession of Kikuhiko, and she plans to cling to that hope until the end. Unfortunately, that end is coming ASAP. She pushes Kiku towards the balcony with the intent of committing double suicide – whether he likes it or not. This is consistent with Miyokichi's character up to this point. Her main desire in a partner has been someone who can either “fix” her (impossible) or comfort her in her misery. She wants accompaniment into the grave, not a real partner. And that's what she ends up getting, not with Kikuhiko, but with Sukeroku.

Sukeroku's actions are what I have the most trouble with. It turns out that he overheard Kikuhiko and Miyokichi's confrontation. As Miyokichi tries to shove Kikuhiko over the balcony (which overlooks a ravine and riverbed), Sukeroku bursts into the room. Apologizing profusely for his previous behavior, he tells Miyokichi that he's been inspired to reform as a husband. He'll give up on rakugo and commit himself to providing for his family. Miyokichi starts crying, and it looks like they might reconcile.

As he says all of this, his earlier rakugo performance takes on new meaning. Initially, we heard it from Kikuhiko's perspective. He identifies with the wife who reformed her deadbeat husband, reading the husband's transformation as Sukeroku's return to rakugo. In his own mind, Kikuhiko had “fixed” Sukeroku. As it turns out, Sukeroku feels differently. To him, the wife was Miyokichi, and the performance was an expression of his desire to reform for her. Of course, this means giving up on rakugo (his “vice” in Miyokichi's eyes) to settle into life as a responsible, hardworking husband.

But before then, the balcony – precariously situated over the ledge – collapses. Sukeroku rushes forward to save Miyokichi and ends up dangling over the ravine, clutching his wife with one arm. Kikuhiko, whose body is still mostly inside the building, clutches Sukeroku's other hand. Kikuhiko's grip is the only thing between them and certain death. There's no way to get them back up, and if they keep this up for too long, Kikuhiko will be dragged down too. Despite his friend's protests, Sukeroku lets go, choosing to die alongside Miyokichi. They leave Kikuhiko hanging, literally, to find his own meaning in the world without them.

While the setup is an accident, Sukeroku “committed suicide” by forcing Kikuhiko to drop him. My interpretation is that Sukeroku's desire to escape ultimately trumped his love of rakugo. His consistent character flaw has been a desire to evade responsibility. Eventually, his intent to “save” rakugo led to a feeling of overwhelming responsibility for the art. If he can't complete this massive task (that he has completely imposed on himself), he sees himself as a failure. This responsibility is more imposing than anything that Miyokichi could foist on him, so he chooses her over rakugo. His commitment to reforming for Miyokichi's sake is just the latest manifestation of Sukeroku's need to dodge responsibility – I doubt that it would have resulted in long-lasting change. Of course, we'll never get a chance to find out. He decides to join Miyokichi in death, both out of pity for her and an unwillingness to confront his own issues.

Kikuhiko licking Miyokichi's tears off is melodramatic in a way that Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū had previously been good at avoiding, but I can't say that some cheesier romantic indulgences haven't been slipping into these past few episodes. Like, the two-daddies montage was adorable, but also out of line with the show's previous tendency to withhold that sort of gratification. I think that this is the mangaka's BL roots peeking through. (Judging by a quick search of works, she seems to have a thing for two men raising a child.)

My interpretation of Sukeroku's character is also too speculative for my liking. I've had to guess at more of his thought process than usual. Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū is a show that trusts its audience to pick up the nuances of complex emotional situations largely on their own, but this final scene is a bit much. It feels like something's missing. Sukeroku's absolute refusal to do any work is still something of a mystery. Sure, he's depressed, but he's whining on the floor while his own child does the hard work setting up for his performance. I hope the next episode provides more insight into Sukeroku's psychology. Did Sukeroku have any idea about Kikuhiko's feelings for him? Does Sukeroku's knowledge of Miyokichi's real name – Yurie – indicate that they were more intimate than we thought? It's all a little inconsistent and too convenient. They already pulled the “one of them was secretly listening in” thing during Sukeroku and Miyokichi's first conversation, and now a version of that happens again during the series climax? The broken balcony is also kind of sketchy, but I can accept that more since Sukeroku makes the conscious decision to let go. Then again, it's strange to follow up the placid Sukeroku we saw in the previous scene with this downright frantic guy. It's all just strange.

This was a slightly more obtuse episode of Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū than I'm used to. I'm not sure how to feel about how the lover's suicide played out. It certainly made me sad, but I needed to think about it for a while before I could wrap my head around why it happened that way. It makes me suspicious – is this really a fitting end for these characters, or am I just convincing myself that it is because of my investment in the show so far? Time will probably help, so I'll deliver a more solid evaluation next week when we have the finale for context. Either way, Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū has addressed all my prior reservations before. It's more than earned the benefit of the doubt – for now. Next week: denouement, angry Konatsu, and a return to her story with Yotaro.

Grade: A-

Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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