Akane-banashi ‒ Episode 3

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Episode 3 of Akane-banashi signals the start of young Akane's long, long journey to greatness.

All of the themes I brought up with the reviews for the first two episodes apply here as well. The main one being “the manga was already great, and the anime just heightens the experience.” Every aspect that was present on the page is brought to vivid life and then some. At the same time, the anime understands the pacing required to make this succeed. There are comedic beats, slower emotional moments, and expressive flights of storytelling fancy all wrapped up in the same appealing package.

A great example of this is how Master Shiguma is used in this week's episode. Shiguma opens with a variety of greetings to try to teach the expressive range required of a rakugoka. These are partially for comedy, partially to show his capabilities. Yet he also has tender moments later on, particularly when Masaki arrives, and they speak about Akane. Masaki Terasoma captures the quiet pain of failure that still lingers within Shiguma, and we get a shot of his hands trembling in his lap as he recalls what happened to Tooru. This all coalesces in a scene where we get the essence of the manga with the added benefits of an anime adaptation, such as strong voice acting, the benefits of full motion, and a musical score to accentuate everything.

I was really excited to see this chapter in particular brought to life. I blazed a trail through the early manga chapters when I first started the series, but this one always stood out to me. Partially, this is because I too worked in food service and learned a lot when I was a young man. Additionally, I felt that the lesson was really clear for Akane, and the advice was actually practical. You can give someone advice, sure, but when it comes to interpersonal situations, sometimes the only way to learn is to get out there and try over and over again. This involves a lot of trying to read people and failing! It feels bad. Akane pushes through and finds her way to connect to people even in difficult situations, like with a language barrier in a time-sensitive environment. Most importantly, the way the restaurant owner opines that rakugo is all about people making mistakes and finding the joy, connection, and comedy of it all is very poignant. Rakugo is a performing art, which means that it is ultimately about communicating the human experience. Akane wants to improve at rakugo, which means she needs to live a full, interesting, and at times difficult life to learn the hard lessons.

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Akane-banashi is currently streaming on YouTube.