I wont go too much into the story as one of the joys is its slowly unravelling nature. But it is fairly simple on paper: it shows the friendship of two young men, both up and coming Rakugo students, and how they approach the art of storytelling (and indeed life itself) very differently. Both have boundless passion for this art, which maintains their strong lifelong bond. This bond of brotherhood is the core of the show, and it so powerful. The characters on SGRS are some of the most wonderfully complex and engaging ive ever come across in Anime. In fact just thinking about them now gets me quite emotional. This is the power of the show. Not to mention the side characters, who each have their own fleshed out and engaging stories, some very sad, but also as powerful.
On top of amazing characters and a quietly devastating, profound, and sometimes very sad tale, we have some breathtaking art and sound. The opening and closing credits contain beautiful melancholy jazz tunes (oh man that ending credits song just destroyed me EVERY time). The art is gorgeous in its attention to detail, the period details from the pre and post war Japan are spot on. Its obvious so much love went into this adaptation.
I honestly could write thousands of words about this show. It has a quiet power that devastated me by its conclusion. It is so different from any other anime ive ever seen. Its not only one of the best anime of 2016, it is one of the best anime ive ever watched. A masterpiece.
