~{Story}~
The story focuses on Yuurakutei “Kikuhiko” Yakumo and his life as a rakugo performer. It shows how his life was before he got successful and how he came to be. You see from his point of view on certain aspects of his past and how he copes with them. First of all, the plot is just a backbone for its characters. Besides the unique premise on focusing on a niche topic like rakugo, everything else doesn’t sound to special, We’ve seen many different stories on a man’s journey on how he became successful, but Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu embraces this plot structure and uses it as its frame for its characters. The things that happen to Kikuhiko and the way he deals with them is impressive. The story stars off with telling you the ending, and you’re just seeing everything unfold. You know the outcome so it should still be predictable, yet when the climax happens, your still on the edge of you seats. If that’s not good writing, I don’t know what is. The way the story unravels, the way multiple tones are used throughout the series, the way you see these characters develop, it’s just marvelous. And knowing that we’ve only seen half of it, and there’s a second half, I couldn’t be more satisfied.
Story: 10/10
~{Presentation}~
As a mentioned before, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, uses its plot to support the characters, rather than using the characters to support its plot. This makes this series a character-focused series and its done so well. The somewhat non-linear structure of the series is also a nice option. First you see the present Kikuhiko, the older one. Then you jump back to his past to see how he became such a person. This is a smart choice because the series already tells you what he turns out to be, but the thrill comes from how became like this, what did he goes through. It interesting to keep in out mindset the final outcome, and seeing how these pieces fit together. Very smart structure indeed. Would it have been nice if the story jumped back and forth between the past and present, I’m not sure, but the anime worked very well the way it is. The dialogues in the anime are really good too as they improve on the character relations. The series is slow-paced, but it adds to the relaxation. However, the early episodes aren’t as interesting because of the pacing. Also, the anime is filled with a good amount of rakugo performances. These moments are very entertaining and it’s nice to feel like an audience at times. However, these rakugo performances aren’t used to showcase the characters’ skills, but rather to show how they feel and what their sanity is. A very good example would be the Shinigami story Kikuhiko tells near the latter half of the story, it shows how he can use such a twisted story that relates to something tragic that happened in his real life. It showed how he as a character not only got better at rakugo, but lost a bit of his humanity. This mind-blowing development was done by a rakugo performance, just one! My only tiny gripe might be that some of the performances drag out a little too long, and it wants you to go back to seeing more of the story. Other than that, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu did a fantastic job here.
Presentation: 9.5/10
~{Character}~
The best thing about Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is its characters. It not just the characters and how they change, nor is it the interactions they have with one another, but rather it the realism these characters bring. Every character in every way is fantastically written. First of all, Kikuhiko is one of the best written characters I’ve seen in a long time. The way he changes as a character was fantastic. What first started out to be a social introvert who looks at rakugo in one way and one way only, slow starts to become a character who realizes the diversity in rakugo, how there’s different styles to choose from, and how creating bonds with other people made him stronger. It’s not like he started off flawed and ended up flawless. No, he still ends up being a flawed character, and that’s exactly why he’s so damn realistic. The other main character of this series, Shin, isn’t as well developed as Kikuhiko (because the anime really is about just him), but even though he’s not our protagonist, he’s still very well developed. The doesn’t change too much throughout the series and that’s a good thing. From beginning to end, he ended up sticking to his ideals and believes. This shows how consistent of a character he was. There are some slight developments he gets at the end that shows how he did change a bit (which I don’t want to spoil), and that shows the flaw he has, that he couldn’t always be consistent. And other supporting characters like Konatsu, Yotarou, Miyokichi all get fine development to add some realism to their characters. They don’t need to be likeable characters, but they are well written characters. However, the real star of the show is Kikuhiko and Shin… mostly Kikuhiko.
Character: 10/10
~{Art}~,
This might just be Studio Deen’s most polished art to date. To simply put it, it’s fantastic. The character designs are really interesting. The way Kikuhiko and Shin looks really matches their personalities so its seeing these two characters together as they create some sort of contrast. The backgrounds, is not only impressive by Deen standards, but by anime standards in general. The backgrounds are very well detailed. What’s even better is the architecture designs, as they have so much detailing to them. The color palette is restricted to colors with lower contrast and it really does improve the mood. Also the facial expressions made in the anime are very realistic and very well chosen for its situations. Overall, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is Deen’s best art work to date.
Art: 9/10
~{Animation}~
Studio Deen not only manages to make the art much better compared to their standards, but they managed to keep consistent, good animations that looks better than a lot of other anime today. Not once was there a quality hiccup. The character movements are fluid and fantastic. During the Rakugo scenes, there’s a lot of character movements, such as hand gestures and expression changes, and they were all done really well. It made me feel like I was watching a real rakugo performance. The background animations aren’t too special though. At times it does feel a little static, but it’s fine. But overall, the animation in Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is very consistent and it complements the art.
Animation: 8.5/10
~{Voice Acting}~
For an anime about rakugo, you would expect some fine voice acting. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu doesn’t disappoint. The cast itself is really impressive, especially since there’s a lot of well-known old school seiyuu here. Ishida Akira is perfect as Kikuhiko. Ishida is a talented seiyuu no doubt, and he uses all of his talent in the role. He manages to depict the flawed character flawlessly. The way he was able to present this character and change his tones as the character changed his actions was great. Also, during the rakugo scenes, Ishida manages to make Kikuhiko look like a completely different character, one who is either constricted or one who is in character. Yamadera Kouichi, who is another talented seiyuu from the past, does an excellent job as Shin. This may be one of his most unique roles he’s done since he does more calm characters, but he manages to do Shin’s voice in delight. Hayashibara Megumi, who is another talented seiyuu, did a fine job as Miyokichi. Seki Tomokazu and Kobayashi Yuu also did really good with their characters, even if their characters didn’t play a big role in this season (but will in the next season). The amount of enthusiasm the seiyuu put in the rakugo performances is just brilliant.
Voice Acting: 10/10
~{Music}~
Another thing that really shines in Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is its music. It really shines due to its uniqueness and how it matched the series. The OP, “Usurai Shinjuu”, is really catchy, while being mysterious at the same time. Hayashibara’s vocals in the OP are haunting and soothing at the same time and it really makes a good mood for the series. The ED, “Kawa, Taredoki”, is strictly okay. It doesn’t have any vocals, but the jazz music is somewhat soothing. The background music used is top-notch. At times the anime uses traditional Japanese music, primarily the use of shamisen, and it really increases the mood, especially during rakugo scenes. Also the use of jazz at times is really nice, as it complements how Japan started to become more modern during those eras.
Music: 9/10
~{Enjoyment}~
To be honest, I never expected myself to enjoy Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu as much as I did. The key visuals made me think that this anime is not for me. I couldn’t be happier when I was surprised from this. The thing I got the most from this series was these characters as they felt so human and so well developed. The way Kikuhiko developed as a character was so entertaining to watch. Plus, the rakugo scenes, which are bundled with fantastic voice acting, are really entertaining, even is a couple of them turn out to be a little too long. The production values are not only outstanding by Studio Deen’s standards, but by this season’s standards too.
Enjoyment: 9.5/10
In the end, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu ended up to be the biggest surprise of this season as it gave us such memorable characters and such good presentation. It’s non-linear structure in terms of storytelling was a really smart choice. And the way the anime presented its flawed characters flawlessly was fantastic. Kikuhiko’s development as a character is the true star of this series. And the fact that there’s an entire half of a story left to tell is really exciting. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu might not be for everyone, but it’s definitely worth a try because just like the main characters, this anime’s got a story to tell.
+ A fascinating story about a man’s journey in society and how he changes as person.
+ Kikuhiko’s development as a character is astonishing
+ Very entertaining rakugo performances that are used to showcase the inner feelings of the characters
+ Its non-linear structure, with them starting off at the ending of the season was a smart decision
+ Fantastic voice acting from the cast, especially Ishida Akira as Kikuhiko
- First two or three episodes are a tad bit slower than the rest of the series
Overall: 9.5/10
