Akane-banashi Review

Rakugo is one performer, one cushion, one fan, and two voices, which is a nightmare to animate and the reason this adaptation is impressive. Ayumu Watanabe stages the sets as performance rather than illustration, cutting on breath and posture, letting the camera sit still when the story on stage is doing the work, and reaching for imagery only when a performer is good enough to put pictures in an audience's head. The result is that skill becomes legible. A viewer with no background can tell which telling is better and why, which is the whole trick of a competition series.

Akane is a strong lead, driven by a grievance she has thought about carefully rather than a generic dream, and the show is honest that her motive is partly unhealthy. The rivals arrive fast and are written as artists with different theories of the form rather than obstacles to clear. Zexcs is not a rich studio and the connective scenes show it, with flat crowd work and some stiff walking, but every frame that matters is on stage. A second season is already scheduled, and this is the sort of series that will look better the longer it runs.