First Impressions – Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen
The best (only?) anime about listening to old men tell long stories is back!
 |
I loved season 1 so much that I postponed finishing it for quite a while. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it unless I was in the perfect mood. I’m glad it worked out like this, because now everything’s a lot more fresh in my memory. I’m ready for season 2! |
 |
As much as I loved the first season, can this season just… ignore the “shinjuu” (or in English, “lover’s suicide”) part of the title? Sukeroku and Miyokichi’s whole thing was great, but I’m going to be devastated if anyone else from this cast dies. I just hope that that first shinjuu was also the last one. |
The story has advanced to where the MC of season one is an old dude and he has a new, plucky apprentice to serve as the new MC. It’s interesting, because Yotaro clearly shares many similarities with Sukeroku, and yet he’s also his own person. I can only hope the story doesn’t harp on the same notes again this time around, because I don’t want a repeat of Sukeroku’s climb towards fame despite being a bit of a vagabond. I was initially a little worried with him (sort of) getting together with Konatsu, especially since the relationships with women in this show have been incredibly complicated and heart-breaking.
Thankfully, Yotaro is a simple guy, and his goal simply seems to be to take care of the girl he cares about. He can’t put a specific label on the type of love he feels for her, but he does know that it’s love, and he’s acting on it in the straightforward manner that he approaches everything in life. This should be much more satisfying than the on-again-off-again game played by Miyokichi and Yakumo. It won’t be without bickering, but at least the two seem to mutually respect one another in this case. Yotaro wants to protect Konatsu (and maybe thinks she’s kinda cute) and Konatsu is taken aback that someone would actually care about rebellious “used goods”.
I think (and hope) this makes Yotaro’s story quite different from Sukeroku. Throughout the episode, it’s apparent that he fits the name Yotaro more than Sukeroku, if that’s any indication how they’re actually dissimilar at the core. I think this is actually depressing to Yakumo, who wanted Yotaro to basically fill the void Sukeroku left. So even if Yotaro tries to mimic him as best as possible and memorize all of his stories, he’ll never actually become the dear friend that Yakumo lost long ago. Yotaro is aware of this, and he voices his opinions on it at the end of the episode by suggesting they all live together so he can find out where he fits in (again, he can’t put a label on it, but he wants to try). It’s a bit of a finicky situation, and I’m excited to see how the whole thing plays out between the three.
I feel like very few anime can go into an new season and start with someone sitting and basically giving an info dump of the last season without it being tedious, but I’m glad that Rakugo Shinjuu started off with rakugo. Also, damn, Tomokazu’s imitation of Ishida Akira was fun to listen to. Sure, the animation is great, but the acting is what really sells it.
It’s so interesting to see how Yotaro is filling Sukeroku’s role in multiple ways. There’s the obvious one, where he wants to fill the void that Sukeroku left in Konatsu’s and Yakumo’s lives. But there’s also where he has an opportunity to revolutionize and postpone the death of rakugo itself. Though of course, Yotaro is doing things in his own way. It will be interesting to see how he tries to go about both of these tasks. Especially since his personality is so fun and energetic, which should bring a different tone to Yotaro’s story than what Yakumo’s part did.
Also, as much as I like Yotaro, I’m glad that there’s still room for development in Yakumo’s character. He’s grown throughout the first season into a jaded old man who seems to want rakugo to die with him (or does he? Since his promise with Yotaro seems to contradict this). This is already a ton of development on it’s own, but now there’s a chance that Yotaro could change Yakumo’s point of view of life again. What happened with Sukeroku seems to have hit Yakumo hard, and I’d really like to see him heal a bit better. Of course, the same goes with Konatsu too, but she’s always seemed like a prickly character, and seeing her now isn’t quite as sad for me as seeing Yakumo is. What I would also love to see is Konatsu and Yakumo finally establishing a closer relationship, since it’s always seemed like their relationship could have been so much more (especially if it came to healing after the deaths of season one), but their personalities have kept them apart. Hopefully Yotaro can somehow accomplish this.
Man, using rakugo to refresh us on the events of last season was the perfect move. Even when presenting old facts, the rakugo gestures and the Oscar-worthy seiyuu performances are so intriguing. There’s just something magical about how the slightest hand flourishes or facial tics tell us everything we need to know about the mood of the performer. For example, I particularly liked Yakumo’s disdainful lip curl when he was presenting later on the episode. He clearly has some unresolved anger towards Yakumo, perhaps because he chose to carry on the Sukeroku name. He’s just saying “do whatever you want” to everything out of spite now.
Based on this solid first episode, I suspect we’re in for another excellent season. Yakumo has an entire season of development behind him, so it’s interesting to see him become so bitter towards rakugo at this point. Konatsu is a wildcard, as per usual. Then there’s Yotaro, who is very responsible in a reckless, dim-witted sort of way. He’s pretty charming! I’m sure things will get more depressing at some point, but for now this show looks really, really fun!
I was worried that I wouldn’t like this new season, since I was really taken in with Yakumo’s past. I did love the first episode of the first season and Yotaro’s story of course, but I guess since it lasted an entire season and the ending result of Yakumo’s life was already established at the beginning of the season, I was just really interested to see how things would end up like they did. Luckily though, the main elements that were great in the first season are also present here. There’s the actual world/politics of rakugo that Yotaro is going to be involved with, but there’s also an element of romance as well, since Konatsu and Yotaro have a complicated relationship already that can progress somewhere. Plus even though we already know a lot about Yotaro and how his career and relationships have progressed, it’s not like everything about him has been revealed. There are those 10 years that the anime skipped over that could bring in interesting plot elements and character dynamics that are hidden right now. Or maybe this anime won’t even need the skipped over 10 years to be interesting. So I’m looking forward to the future episodes, even though what I’ve seen from the OP seems really… depressing. Hopefully this is just depressing because it’s supposed to be about Yakumo’s point of view.
About Tag Team
We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Showa Genroku S2 will fully adapt the remaining source manga, which ended June last year.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 83 comments
So now I know where the titular ‘lovers’ double suicide’ comes from!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
It means he doesn’t have to see it change, and he doesn’t have to take responsibility for taking or not taking a hand in that change.
Same old gloriously human story…