Review of Akane-banashi

Note: Light spoilers ahead. In summary, the protagonist, the directing and the messages carry an otherwise typical, simple and unexciting story and a support cast made up of plot devices rather than full on characters.

Akane-banashi was a surprise in various ways, with the biggest one being that it became my third liked anime of the year, something which I did not expect before watching it, but probably should have, as I didn’t dislike any rakugo or kabuki anime I have watched until now.

But beyond that, what surprised me about Akane-banashi was how it felt almost like an anachronistic work of some kind, and the most conservative in nature anime I have watched in years. I will get to that later.

Even though I was aware of Akane-banashi being a Shounen Jump property, it is easy to forget that the moment you sit down and watch an anime. But then I begin watching it and yeah, a shounen through and through. It follows all the basics of the formula, training, revenge plot, tournament or competition of sorts, antagonistic organizations, rivalries set up early on, getting a high rank or level of something as an objective, semi cliffhanger ending setting more training and potential antagonists or rivals.

And yet, despite following the formula, it likes to mess around with it to some degree. I will not call it a subversion or deconstruction or any fancy word like that, but I find its peculiarities worth noticing and mentioning. First and foremost, in the main magazine aimed at young boys, and following its basic formula, Akane-banashi stars a girl. And no, unlike plenty of other contemporary anime, it does not sexualize nor objectify its main character in any way, so it is not like starring a female main character is just a cover up for the male gaze. It is also about a traditional art such as rakugo, a very rare subject for its main audience. It applies the formula in a slice of life and coming of age kind of way instead of high octane action.

It is certainly not the first shounen with an uncommon topic. Bakuman was about mangakas and was doing its own thing, but was also made by two big authors. Shokugeki no Souma is closer to this anime than any fighting shounen, yet it was imitating them to a tee in very over the top ways for a freaking cooking anime. And for those of you that still remember it, Runway de Waratte was following the formula within the fashion industry of all things, and featured a main girl and a main boy who were a model and a designer respectively. It never felt like a fighting anime but it was trying to build up tension like a sports anime like crazy.

Akane-banashi kind of does the same but without any kind of stakes. Although it never happens on shounen anime, on paper, a mangaka can fail hard to get published, struggle, and go broke. A chef can hurt themselves in the kitchen, and people in the fashion industry…well there are no high stakes over there either, but they could find some cuckoo petty rival out of their way to hurt them and suffer all kinds of gossip on mass media that would affect their lives. What kind of stakes are in rakugo? At most they could get expelled.

In fact, that is the starting point of the anime, the protagonist wanting revenge on who is presented as the main antagonist, for expelling her father six years back. And yet, to that, Akane-banashi says, the man went on with his life, to do something else, see? It is not the end of the world. After that the main character gets motivated to become a rakugoka herself and avenge her father, which in this context means to confront the old man, so it is a revenge plot without edge. That is why the series is also a next generation type of show. It is not that uncommon for shounen these days. Think about Boruto, Mokushiroku no Yonkishi, Yashahime, and even Dodge Danko is airing right now. Oh and there was Saint Seiya Omega more than a decade ago. Those came out way after their previous installments finished, and usually crapped on them. Akane-banashi on the other hand sets itself up to be a first and main series, and that kind of sequel, at the same time.

Did I say parents of the main character? Yes both of them are alive, crazy I know, and somewhat present, quite rare. Do they at least oppose her idea to prevent the same thing happening twice? No, they know about it and support her, also quite rare.

The training in this case implies the protagonist managing to mix well her activity of interest with the rest of her life, it is not that she disregards all the other things completely. Thus, following her fellow older apprentices and teacher’s advice, she works at a bar, decides on her career while mixing it with an apparition on a tournament for students, and even learns the history around one specific performance she has to present. This way the side activities are connected in a way to the main one, and the support characters provide actual good advices, lessons and counseling that are related to what the main character is going through. Thus, there is a feeling of the different pieces falling into place to make a coherent whole, and that stuff is happening and things are progressing even in a “slice of nothing happens” show. Plus, the way the series compares and connects a job based on serving and teaching in a classroom to grabbing the attention of an audience and caring about their enjoyment during the performance made sense and was cool to see.

Those that are presented as the main opposing forces to the protagonist are not even villains nor even actively antagonistic. As we follow the perspective of the main girl, the initial image we have of them makes sense, but as we get to see them outside of said perspective and get to know the tiniest things about them, we learn that they are not like she pictures them as, there are no cartoony nor petty characters in here, and even the closest ones to that are still very sensible, level-headed and grounded for the genre and demographic.

Despite its typical core, I did say that Akane-banashi feels kind of like an anachronistic work, and to justify that I will start with the concept itself. As far as I know there are four rakugo anime and one about Kabuki. Joshiraku uses rakugo just as its premise, it is otherwise about the characters saying fuck you to physics in cartoony ways and making social commentary through puns, it was all in service of the gags with rakugo being just the setup for the setting, not even fully a concept. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu and My Master Has no Tail both use rakugo as means for something greater and more profound. In the former, it was something for the characters to fix their lives with and confront the passage of time and change in eras that was actually endangering their art and profession, and was also a catalyst to face their regrets in life head on. The latter does not do a very good job about it, but it was using rakugo as a form of regaining connection between humans and animals, humans and nature. And both of them were historical titles.

Akane-banashi is set in contemporary times and was honestly kind of a relief to see that the art that the characters from the previous shows were scared of disappearing, is actually still preserved in some way or form. I mean Kabuki-bu was doing a similar thing, as it was about a modern day school club about kabuki, as the name makes it clear, yet that was all there was to it. This anime on the other hand has the preservation of the art in current times as its central theme, but only from the perspective of the antagonists, as the protagonist wants to become a top rank rakugoka herself, and honor the name of her father, something which is noble but nowhere near as grandiose as what the other characters want. In a meta way, it is what the author is doing as well, by making a manga about rakugo now, and I find that commendable.

Even on an aesthetical level, Akane-banashi feels like a show that does not fully belong in our times. The artwork is good and does not suffer from quality drops but not as detailed as other top popular anime tend to have, I mean look at Atelier from its season to compare. The colouring and lighting in this anime also stands out, it is not warm like the anime that imitate retro aesthetics like My Status as an Assassin, Magical Destroyers, the currently airing Sayonara Lara and the likes. it is not dark in an also retro way like Orb or Pluto, but it is also not as bright as anime series are in general now. The special effects and the color speed lines that at times replace the very well made backgrounds for impact effect look like a decade old, yet somehow everything fits together very nicely. The motions are not much because the anime prioritizes impact effect, yet at around the half mark in the last episode it is clear that Zexcs could have filled the series with warm special effects like that striking sunset scene, and detailed body motions like that one where the head down Akane kept moving around while her rakugo teacher was walking around the room to show her her new name. What is done the best is the storyboard, focusing on the details of the expressions and body language of the characters, both performers and audience, while the fiery special effects serve to compliment that aspect. It is a case of good directing making up for limited production values, and well directed rakugo is always a treat to see.

I mean look at the opening, it is not very good because the first half features Akane jumping around and surfing against some kind of wave meant to represent her struggles in sequences that feel like they belong in an action series, while the second has the characters dancing, like almost all openings today do, yet the song is a slow rock sung by a middle age deep masculine voice, it is almost comical how the two aspects do not really fit together. The ending feels even more retro, by going over sceneries in a beach to show one final frame of Akane’s face, with similar vocals on the back, what are these videoclips doing in a 2026 anime?

The audio department is good thanks to the sound effects and voice acting for all the different rakugo performances, and I am particularly surprised by Anna Nagase voicing Akane and nailing all the nuances in rakugo while being so young, but the music is…not even there? It is really forgettable and unlike the other rakugo anime, there is no shamizen accompanying the performances here.

Narratively Akane-banashi is kind of odd as well by going through training, rivalry setups, a competition and ending with a satisfying conclusion in one core, all while featuring rakugo performances taking a good portion of the episodes, not like lots of action series that either spend a whole season in training, like Boku no Hero, end in a complete cliffhanger giving its cour no sense of closure, like lots of series but Bastard!! comes first to mind, or Atelier which suffers from both. In that sense it reminded me of my favourite franchise Hibike! Euphonium which ends each season with a competition and a graduation for the third year members of the club every time, with this anime having the advantage of not sacrificing performance time for training or teen drama like over there. It does not rush through its content either like I don’t know, Jigokuraku, Hokuto no Ken or worst of all, Golden Kamuy, from its year alone. It hits a balanced middle point between the dragged on retro that now feels like a slog to watch and the rushed modern that ends episodes on awkward moments instead of impactful scenes. It is kind of rare for a long and ongoing manga of our times to get an adaptation with a pacing like this, especially in such fast moving times and the era of scrolling, reels, short duration content and entertainment.

But more importantly, did I not say that Akane-banashi is the most conservative anime I have watched in years? How is that possible when it is about bringing a traditional art to modern times, a next generation type of series, and it stars a girl in a shounen? Well, though to its approach in writing and messages.

First, because of its subject matter itself in this era. Second, for both the design and characterization of said girl. Akane might talk in ways that might come off as rude and might not be afraid to hit some guy if needed, but she is not a fake tomboy the likes of which anime is full of. She is very pretty, with her earrings, purple eyes, black and pink hair and ponytail while performing, and is shown to take care of her image, clothing and rakugo etiquette, even while using casual clothes similar to those of Earphone Jack from Hero Academia. She is not a fake gyaru the likes of which are common these days either. On top of it all, she is not a girl boss either, which makes me think that a certain annoying type of fans would have liked her and her anime, if they cared about the subject matter one bit. She learns from all her older fellow apprentices, all of which are men, and respects all of them a lot. Heck, half of her motivation itself is to honor her father, both by confronting the man that expelled him, and by showing him that she is going to be a top rakugoka with that same rakugo from her father that the old man dismissed at the beginning of the story.

Like I said before, nothing in the anime objectifies nor sexualizes the protagonist. Look at her, she is pretty but has realistic proportions, none of that overblown exaggerated figures around here. The rest of the cast, whether cute or not, female or male, fares similarly as well, there’s a lot of variety in character figures in here and all of them fit together nicely. But more importantly, no male character belittles nor underestimates Akane while teaching her something, nor at any other moment. It is traditional, it is conservative in nature, yet not rooted in misogyny, good job.

But most importantly, it is so because of how it handles its formula and messages themselves. I mean think about it and compare it with other titles. An era just finished of fake underdogs like Deku and Asta, that are supposed to have their whole settings against them because they don’t have super powers nor magic respectively, they are given a power or happened to have the perfect counter power, and the first one even got it from the canonically most powerful and important guy in the world, talk about succeeding thanks to connections and luck. And this becomes equally bad if not worse when we think about the big three protagonists, but that was already talked about enough to bring it up in here. I have read defenses of the likes that the point of an underdog story is that the main character eventually stops being an underdog, and to that I say well, there has to be some balance, or else you end up with the Spider-man situation, condemned to be miserable and rebooted forever. But still, Joe Yabuki, Hanamichi Sakuragi, Kaiji Itou, Akko Kagari and even Coco from the same season as Akane, are some examples of people who get small victories without things going their way and their world conveniently working around them.

You would probably think, wait, it is not right to compare action shows with non-action ones. Well then, let's limit it to competition-like series. Hibike! Euphonium did it half right by making the main school lose tournaments a couple of entries despite giving them small victories, because although the main characters are really good at playing their instruments, the same can not really be said about the orchestra as a whole. It would have been better if other schools and performances were shown half as much though, but no, time was needed for teen drama.

From the bad side of examples. Shokugeki no Souma had Souma Yukihira being a “break the norm” and “go against tradition” type of character, what with his unorthodox recipes and always defying the system. Despite being in a non-action anime and manga, he was plot armored with things going his way, avoiding being expelled several times just because, even during rigged matches, getting power up-like moves during his cooking battles, and gaining powerful connections despite being a supposed underdog. Let’s look at Runway de Waratte too, where Chiyuki and Ikuto were at disadvantage within their discipline and setting, essentially being underdogs, yet the anime ruined it by being rushed, having things going their way conveniently, and spoiling its ending like Hero Academia does. You would probably think but well, that is just how real life is, you need connections in order to get somewhere regardless of how good you are at something. Yes, that is not the issue, the issue is that these aforementioned anime are not open nor honest about it, and work conveniently and through nepotism for their main characters.

Now let’s look at what Akane-banashi does through that Karashi Neriyama dude who modernizes rakugo stories and is a people’s pleaser to get results, and that Hikaru Koragi woman who is a pretty voice actress trying to broaden her horizons in order to get more popular and successful…through…rakugo… They are ambitious and want to break the norm, in other anime they would be the protagonists and winners of the competition they participate in during the season, but in this one they are not. Akane is not an underdog, and certainly does not have things going her way just because of connections. She has some but they do not make things easier for her, and the biggest people she knows are against her, through her eyes at least. More importantly she is talented but has also practiced and trained and learned and fixed her rakugo performances since she was little, as we see both in present time and through flashbacks. For a protagonist of her era, and a girl at that, and after the big three 00s era, she feels closer to the Kenshiros, the Seiyas, the Kenshins of old, to a much lesser degree of course, and she also does not only want personal success and not only thinks about performing well, but cares about her audience first, and does something for her father as well, so that goes against the western female leads with daddy issues of now. I tell you, if the annoying conservative chuds would have given a crap about this anime, they would have loved its protagonist.

But also, and more importantly, in an era of short duration and fast paced content and entertainment, and filled with fiction the kind of what I already wrote enough about, what this anime tells the audience through both the protagonist and antagonist, is that just talent and fame will not get you what you want, you need to work hard and consistently for years, not care just about you but also about those around you, both family and partners in career, and to keep alive tradition, history and arts in modern times and against all other kinds of entertainment, in modern ways if you want but respecting what made them what they are in the first place, their essence if you will, and with a respectable level of quality. In the times of cheap productions, remakes that often do not measure up to the originals, and above all, fucking generative AI used in big productions everywhere, I find those messages even more commendable.

But wait, that kind of sucks, does not it? Is Akane-banashi telling the audience that you cannot catch up and that you will not get chances in a type of art or discipline if you do not start up from early on in your life? Well no, as both Karashi and Hikaru get or search for new offers from big schools and masters and room for improvement at the end of the season, despite falling short compared to Akane.

But after all those nice things I’ve written about Akane-banashi, it is not like it is a great anime, and there is also a need to criticize it where it fails. First of all, it definitely tries hard to make the unexciting exciting. Look at all that presentation of ranks, the silhouettes of the rakugo masters, all the other ones and their schools presented at the end of the season, the fiery special effects used from time to time, trying to build up hype and tension around rakugo, and it does not work, it does not hit because it is rakugo, there are not stakes whatsoever. It would be hypocritical of me not to point that aspect out as well, given how it is a common criticism of mine amongst my reviews.

I have nonetheless somewhat praised and rated well enough slice of life shows that also lacked stakes throughout the years (Usagi Drop, Aishiteruze Baby, Ikoku Nikki from this year, to name some). Well those had either more complex and important topics and plenty of explored characters for me to consider them worth watching and reading, some even featured permanent changes and somewhat psychological moments, like Blue Period. Despite its messages being delivered even in some meta ways, Akane-banashi is not really on that level of substance, and no side character is as good as the passionate protagonist, on top of everything else I have already said about her. They at the very least are used very well as plot devices nonetheless.

Another issue is that Akane-banashi still has a very anime and more prominently, shounen problem, the exposition. My man we really do not need all that talk and presentations about rakugo ranks and stories and what the performers are doing and what the audience is feeling, especially not when the directing and storyboard are already doing a good job at that. It is inefficient and redundant. Despite that, I have to say that the exposition done through appendixes in the form of the chibi-like sketches at the end of the episodes are done well, even mixing real life footage for a more interesting visual presentation, and having a different character interacting with Akane each time, sometimes learning from her and sometimes being the ones that teach her something, thus maintaining and respecting characterization and character dynamics. For comparison, My Master Has no Tail from 2022 had the tanuki protagonist all alone, thus with no interesting interactions, retelling details from the same story performed in the same episode, which was definitely redundant, and despite being a seinen title, she was all cutesy and talking in her high pitched voice of hers, what made it feel like she was talking to a younger audience.

The exposition problem even affects the rakugo performances themselves. Even though Akane-banashi is overall better than Hibike! Euphonium at showing the other characters performing, it is still not quite on the level of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu and even the best times of Uchi no Shishou wa Shippo ga Nai as far as the rakugo itself is concerned, because its cuts the performances short, or interrupts them with flashbacks or exposition. As long and tedious some found the rakugo scenes in Shouwa Genroku ten years ago, that one aspect was done better and with a better directing focusing on angles and facial expressions over there. Also no shounen tricks nor exposition. But oh well, like the anime itself says, a performance could last 15 or 20 minutes, and we cannot possibly have that, especially in current times, and would be a pain in the ass for the studio to pull off something like that.

And despite lacking all that power ups, conveniences, silly hype, referential comedy and fanservice nonsense, which makes Akane-banashi better than its peers, it is also what makes it hard to believe that it would be popular and successful among an audience that expects exactly that. Just like I wrote about Aoi Hana some years ago, what gives it a certain level of quality is also what makes it hard for the title to grab the target audience. And for that reason I am genuinely surprised the manga is as big as it is. Long, ongoing, successful and popular, despite everything working against it on paper. Runway de Waratte did not have such luck. I have been informed of some other popular arts and performances with female leads shounen mangas of the moment, so maybe we are in the rise of a female-focused, shounen school coming of age arts era? That would be interesting to see.

And I am also, well not worried nor scared, that would be too much, but a bit concerned perhaps, about something in the season finale, which presents and setups lots of rival schools, rakugokas and alongside something that spoiled myself from the manga, makes me think that Akane-banashi could devolve into something more typical going forward. But at least for the time being that is not an issue present in this season.

Bottom line, normally I would probably not consider this anime more than a well made average title, but due to its protagonist and messages, going against its peers, twisting the formulas enough and well despite respecting them to their core, conveying its message even in its availability for free on YouTube in the era of big companies at the top of their greed (something I did not know about and for what I have to ask for forgiveness of), and for being extremely relevant for its time, without even needing to be topical like Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai was some years ago, I will raise the score probably a little more for the anime than it truly deserves and consider it somewhat worth watching at least once, as a product or better yet a piece of entertainment and art more so than a good story, and hopefully a proof and lesson for a lot of producers and fans out there that you can have good, well intentioned instead of mean spirited conservative in nature fiction, shounen titles that do not need stupid edge, power ups and conveniences and fanservice and objectification of its cast, primarily the girls, to be successful and popular, and that good directing and storyboards are more important than flashy and super detailed visuals and animation.


6/10