[00:02] storytelling performance. In anime thus far, there have only been a handful of titles that cover this art form at all. Rakugo Shinju and Joshiraku. Shinju is a fantastic series with an untold depth to its characters hampered only somewhat by
[00:17] the lack of a like a fanatic passion needed to showcase why an average person could love Rakugo. Joshiraku is like the complete opposite. It's a comedy that uses Rakugo as its main medium of joke delivery, which somewhat gets lost in
[00:30] translations at the worst of times. Neither of them, I would say, is the absolute perfection or pinnacle of showcasing what Rakugo is to someone who has no idea nor give them a reason to care, but this series, I think, takes
[00:45] care of that far better. Today is day seven of me giving my impressions of the new anime from spring 2026 and ranking the first episode accordingly. This is Akane Banashi, a story about one girl's goal to become the best damn Rakugo
[00:59] the kind of Rakugo that she can do, the kind of Rakugo that she watched her father perform for hours, but also to show that her father's Rakugo has actual merit, that it, alongside her own take on things, can rejuvenate the somewhat
[01:12] [music] lagging in popularity Japanese storytelling art form, even if her fellow contemporaries might to disagree and some of them even had her father banished from the profession altogether. I do not want to spoil much of this
[01:24] it will do so much of a better job at explaining Rakugo and the motivations of [music] will. I really also want to say that there are very, very few anime
[01:36] actually sat down and read their manga for. Oddly, there are two this season, but that just seems to be a level of coincidence I can't handle. I don't normally find a manga series engaging enough to do that with and [music]
[01:51] just not have me wait for the anime to come along, but this, I read this years now it's an anime. So, if I can do that, you can watch it and then read it and then also agree with me that it's well worth being S tier.