7th Time Loop – 06 – The Princes Who Wanted to Disappear

I figured Theo using Elsie and Kamil to kidnap Rishe wasn’t going to go well for him. What I didn’t necessarily see coming was Rishe facilitating cathartic reconciliation between the two brothers, estranged on purpose by Arnold.

But I’m getting ahead of myself! I can’t tell you how cool it is to see a smiling Rishe barge in on Theo, just when he thinks he has Arnold on the ropes, not five minutes into the episode.

We actually began back at Rishe’s villa. She was only pretending to feel the effects of the sleeping drug, and confronts Elsie and Kamil. She realizes they’re not doing this because Theo threatened them, but because Theo is the slums’ top benefactor.

Then the episode uses Rishe’s detailed 3-point lesson in how to properly imprison someone to Theo as a framing device for showing her totally badass escape, which was inevitable considering her past lives’ experience and Theo’s failure to check any of the necessary boxes for a successful capture (including breaking the captive’s limbs and keeping at least two sets of eyes on them at all times).

Theo may have though he had this grand plan, but seeing it all turned to dust so quickly should be a hint to quit putting on the Unhinged Evil Younger Prince act. Rishe has already seen through it, just as his brother has: Theo doesn’t hate his brother, nor does he want him to suffer.

Rather, this whole overblown act was to create such a commotion and disgrace himself, giving him cover to abdicate his place in the line of succession. She’s done a little research, and can tell while his public acts of charity in the slums have cease, he continues to funnel his own money there. The Theo we’ve seen isn’t the real Theo: a kind an generous prince who also has a major brother complex (okay, that part we saw).

Ise Mariya does phenomenal work voicing the young prince as he insists that his brother hating him, despising, him, casting him out, even killing him is preferable to not being accepted. To this, Arnold only coldly repeats what he’s already said: he doesn’t care about Theo one way or another.

After Theo runs off, it’s time for Rishe to call out Arnold’s BS: he does care about his brother, otherwise he wouldn’t have ordered her to stay away from him. She also finally understands what he meant by her not needing resolve to be his wife—he intends to abdicate and disappear.

Arnold finds it “adorable” that Rishe can’t read his intentions, and that he’s better off not understanding, but whether he likes it or not, Rishe is someone who will never seeking understanding. She asks him to consider a possible future in his brother disappears, and to live a life where he has no regrets.

As for her, she fully intends to live her life (even if it’s her last) as his wife, with no regrets. And while her body is starting to give out after all that running and fighting, she still feels she has one more thing to do before going to bed, and climbs to the top of the tower where she finds Theo.

Theo was thinking about the one time Arnold praised him, after he used his own body to protect his vassals in a field hospital. Arnold is proud of him, but warned him never to put his life at risk like that again. Rishe confirms her suspicions to the one who has watched Arnold more closely than anyone: he’s trying to leave the throne to Theo.

Ever since that time he was praised, Theo watched his brother for the express purpose of determining the best way to be useful to him. He believes Arnold disappearing rather than ruling is a mistake. Even if it means disappearing before Arnold can, he’ll do it.

Rishe doesn’t believe that, and says she’ll need his strength as Arnold’s only little brother to keep Arnold from disappearing. But Theo’s mind is already set, and he falls backwards over the tower. Rishe lunges out to catch him, but her muscles finally gives out. It appears that Theo will fall to his death, but his brother catches him.

Once Theo is safe, Arnold slaps him, then repeats what he said in that field hospital: Don’t put your life at risk again. That his big brother remembered that moment brings tears to Theo’s eyes, and he reverts to a sobbing mess.

When Rishe sees that all is now well with the brothers, she finally lets herself pass out. Theo is concerned, but Arnold simply smiles as she rests in his lap, the scar from the wound he sustained saving Theo’s life fully exposed.

Moments after Theo sees his brother looking happier than he’s ever seen him look, he also gets to hear his brother say “I leave it to you,” referring to arranging the carriages. Becoming his big brother’s strength starts with making sure his fiancée gets home safe.

When Rishe wakes up the next morning, Arnold is writing at her desk, having stayed with her the whole time. He delivers a letter from Theo apologizing for how he treated her and telling her he’s in her debt. He’s also agreed to join forces with her (with the power of the slums at his back) her in ensuring Arnold doesn’t fuck off somewhere, but ascends to the throne, because he’s the best man for the job.

The episode ends on a cute romantic note, with Arnold asking her to think of something else he can do for her since he couldn’t resist kissing her in the chapel. This makes a flustered Rishe retreat within her sheets, and Arnold thanks her for looking after “his little brother.” Rishe smiles and tells him not to worry about it, since he’ll be her little brother too.

This was another fantastic midpoint episode that gave Theo a lot more dimension and further deepened Arnold and Rishe’s bond. We also got to see Rishe not only be a badass fighter, but use the interpersonal skills she’s learned to mediate the conflict between the brothers. All of this bodes well for a future where she’ll live beyond the limit of her past lives.

To Your Eternity – S2 04 – The Prince of Ghosts

The morning after their little talk, Parona!Fushi is still not sure what to do, so she decides to stick around for the time being—but only for a day. She conjures a bed to lie on out in the wastes, but a concerned Prince Bon brings builders to help her build walls around the bed (she conjures the bricks, they provide the grout and grunt work).

While construction proceeds, Prince Bon asks “Mister Black” (i.e. the Beholder) what he’ll do once Fushi accomplishes his mission. The Beholder appears to say he’ll give Fushi his “freedom.” Bon isn’t sure what to make of such a vague promise. “Freedom” could mean anything, after all … and not all of it good!

The next morning, Parona!Fushi wakes up in her makeshift house and Bon’s sister Pocoa accompanies her to the stables to find a horse to ride for their  ensuing travels. They hear screams of anguish from Bon and come running to find that his handkerchief was caught by the wind and came to rest on a pile of shit in the cesspool. One intrepid attendant fishes the hankie out of the shit, and Fushi learns his name is Todo.

Having been told to find friends and a lover by Bon, and seeing something fly out of Todo’s “essence”, she asks if Todo is in love with Bon; him running away and denying it says it all. Fushi then asks Kahaku if a boy can love another boy; Kahaku says whatever needs to be said to stay in the lover running. Though he previously said he wouldn’t try to seduce Fushi, that was before he met Parona!Fushi.

One thing that’s certain about Prince Bon is that he commands the unswerving love and devotion of the vast majority of his father’s subjects. He’s even able to spin the Church’s tack about Fushi being a menace, using the kingdom’s press to build him up as a holy warrior and savior against the Nokkers. As they ride out in a grand parade, Bon reminisces on how he got to this point.

Bon’s ensuing backstory, while somewhat shoehorned into this episode, is nevertheless fascinating—and also quite sad. Bon has always been able to see people no one else could. Whether these people were ghosts, spooks, specters or shadows was immaterial; they taught him a lot and made him who he is.

As for his precious hanky, we learn it was sewn by a girl who doesn’t appear to be one of the ghosts he sees, judging by the fact she doesn’t glow white like them, and the hanky is a physical object others can see (even if she slipped away before anyone else could see her).

Pocoa assumes the girl was just another instance of Bon’s “usual thing”, which is seeing dead people. His mother, who doesn’t like this one bit, hires some kind of “healer” to cure him of the malady through bloodletting. Bon’s usual ghost companions are joined by Tonari, who tells Bon bedside stories about Fushi, the immortal one, and tells him how he’ll find him.

One day Bon finds his father the king’s will stating his little brother will usurp him for the throne. When he demands an explanation, his father’s is relatively reasonable: Bon spends all his allowance on trifling things like clothes and accessories, while Torta selflessly gives to the people.

Not being the kinslayer sort, Prince Bon instead resolves to change his father’s mind and name him the future king. He eventually decides he’ll be able to do that by finding and capturing the wanted Fushi. Tonari told him to look for someone with an “enormous shadow”, and sure enough Bon finds Fushi walking through a city with the ghost of Oniguma-sama lumbering behind him, as well as ghost March, Gugu, Tonari, and others.

Prince Bon’s “affliction” isn’t mere schizophrenia, but something real; the ability to see all of the departed companions Fushi has absorbed into his being. He may be an insufferable fop, but there’s no discounting the fact that this ability is truly wondrous, and the very reason they were drawn together. If anyone is going to help Prince Bon regain his throne, it’s Fushi, and if anyone is going to help Fushi take the next crucial steps towards humanity, it’s Bon.

The Genius Prince’s Guide – 08 – Little Miss Vying for the Throne

With help from Mayor Cosimo of the merchant city of Mealtars, Princess Lowellmina has organized a Summit of Imperial Heirs, where she and her three brothers can discuss a “peaceful succession”. She made a point to invite Natra, which is to say Wein, but is surprised to discover he sent his sister Princess Falanya in his stead.

It was actually Falanya’s idea. Sure, Wein had no interest in getting tangled up in another one of Lowa’s webs, and has the excuse of dealing with the aftermath of the civil war. But as we’ve seen in what are informative but rather stiff infodumps with her tutor, she’s absorbed enough knowledge, and wants an opportunity to apply it…while helping her dear brother out.

Lowa soon pivots from her disappointment over Wein not coming, and decides to introduce Falanya to her three brothers. There’s the youngest, Prince Manfred, who seems the shrewdest of the three (though not four if you include Lowa!), the hulking military-backed Prince Bardloche, and the eldest, Demetrio, who is the eldest…and biggest jerk.

Falanya comports herself well in this deep end of the political pool; a testament to her education and diligence. When the three bros start to bicker, Ninym is there to suggest the politest possible tactical retreat: she already promised to speak to Lowa.

However, it’s Ninym who picks up on Lowa’s not-so-subtle cues she wishes to talk in private, and it’s here where the episode shines, as I love how these two drop all rank and pretense and act towards each other like the old classmates and friends (or frenemies?) they are.

As Falanya observes and learns at the banquet, Lowa proposes a deal with Ninym: inside information about the summit of heirs in exchange for Natra joining her cause (which is now a legitimate fourth faction, making up in patriotic fervor what it lacks in teeth). Ninym, who wasn’t born yesterday and understands Wein’s wishes, imitates Wein perfectly in declining Lowa.

It’s not quite as fun when Mayor Cosimo gives Falanya a tour of the city, but Falanya is suddenly inspired upon entering the “Citizen’s Assembly”, which serves as a kind of non-voting delegation of commoners who hash out various proposals and debates.

Even though they’re discussing the construction of a new aquaduct, Falanya is enthralled, and watches carefully to see who among the delegates persuades most of the others to his way of thinking (unfortunately, I didn’t see any women in the assembly).

Demetrio, who we immediately learn to be a rude petulant asshole, activates Full Skeevy Villain Mode when he decides he’ll take out his anger at Wein for sending Falanya in his stead by doing…something to Falanya. It’s clear that even in a scenario in which Lowa doesn’t win the battle of succession, it isn’t going to be this guy.

He’s just a bad seed, and when his face twisted as he knocked over his own table of food, I thought him capable of anything, up to and including kidnapping poor lil’ Falanya!

That something turns out to be initially less barbaric, as he suddenly surprises Falanya (and Lowa and Ninym) with a proposal of marriage to Falanya. He says it’s to tighten bonds with Natra, but it’s really because once Falanya marries him, he’ll consider her his property to torment as he pleases. That’ll teach Wein to slight him!

Falanya trembles a bit, but regains her cool and politely responds by saying she’ll convey his proposal to Natra. When Demetrio says he needs an answer from her now, she takes the kid gloves off and surprises everyone in the room with her directness: royal marriages are a matter of state, and she knows full well she’s still too young and inexperienced to make such a decision alone.

Wein’s brother would be so proud…so it’s a good thing he’s here, and was listening just outside the room. On the one hand I’m sure Falanya and Ninym are glad Wein’s there. I also believe that Falanya won’t see his arrival as a failure on her part; as she said, she’s too young and inexperienced for the moves that are going down in Mealtars.

Demetrio will have to tread lightly around Wein to avoid being gutted, but it’s also incumbent on Wein not to doom his country by impulsively slaying the eldest imperial prince, even if he is a prick! Finally, I’m sure Lowa is glad Wein’s there, because she wanted him there all along. Will she be able to draw him to her side, huge hassle though it may be for him?

Fruits Basket – 45 – It’s Fine to Be Buttoned Up Wrong

We return to Kaibara High as Yuki, Kakeru and the StuCo prepare for the Cultural Festival. Kakeru asks why Yuki has yet to acquire a cell phone, which requires a parent’s sign-off, and Yuki states it’s partly because his family is like shirt “buttoned up wrong”—an expression Kakeru loves.

As the they approach the office, a book flies through the window of the door, shattering the glass. Inside it looks like a tornado went off, and Machi stands alone in there, looking mortified. Kakeru asks the others to leave things to him, and Yuki notes that it’s not the first time.

What is Machi to Kakeru? Well, since he now trusts Yuki, Kakeru confides in him something the other StuCo members don’t know: he and Machi are stepsiblings, with the same father. He brings up a recent heated dispute over succession going on between their mothers, with Kakeru being the older male heir but whose mother was a mistress, and Machi being a younger female but her mother being her father’s wife.

Initially, Kakeru and Machi were caught in the middle at a time when Kakeru took everything his parents and other adults said as gospel. But eventually, he came to see how he was “mixed up in something dumb” and freed himself by acting out, which led his mom to withdraw him from consideration for succession. This means Machi stands alone as the potential successor—or would be, if her gender didn’t complicate matters.

As Kakeru puts it, he may be free, but Machi may not be. Trashing the StuCo office is akin to what he did one night during dinner, only in private; a dry run that lacks the stakes of the real thing. Yuki is able to put his own family troubles into perspective learning that plenty of other families have issues and are similarly “buttoned up wrong,” but also acknowledges that family can’t change, so you just have to live with it. Yuki ends up tossing up the pile of papers they had just reorganized.

It’s a gesture that says it’s okay to accept the things you cant control, and even laugh them off. Yuki then takes the application to his mom, who signs it without complaint. Before Yuki takes his leave, she says perhaps the most “parent-like” thing she’s ever said to him: “D-don’t spend too much time on the phone.” The surprise of hearing those words from her and the awkwardness with which she said them bring a smile and chuckle to Yuki’s face.

The next day, Machi returns to the office to apologize and promise not to trash it ever again (a promise she’s made before), and while Nao continues to fume and scold (he’s really annoying this week), Yuki follows Tooru’s example, asking Machi if instead of simply making such a promise not to do it, to help them understand why she did it.

The other members of StuCo (minus Nao) are impressed with his display of empathy and kindness, but Yuki realizes he’s late for his class meeting to announce the roles for Cinderella, which the class will be performing for the festival. Abstaining from the role of prince due to his workload, a reluctant Kyou is chosen as the prince and Saki(!) as (potentially “Wicked”) Cinderella.

As for Tooru? She’ll be an evil stepsister, and she assures Yuki she’ll work hard to be “more evil than the devil himself!” Uh…yeah. Uh-huh. Members of Prince Yuki hope her role as villainess will hurt her standing with Yuki, but they’re so clueless it’s almost sad. Arisa doesn’t see why they can’t do a more grown-up play, and she has a point: I just got done watching Sakura’s fifth-grade class perform it!

Shortly after returning to the StuCo office, Yuki accidentally ends up trapped in the storage room, the lock for which is broken. He knocks an open can of black paint(?) which splatters on the wall and his uniform, and suddenly memories of when Akito tried to ratttle him at the beach well up inside him, making him anxious.

Leaving aside whether Miki arranged for him to be locked in there (I’m not sure what her motive would be), it’s Machi who ends up busting through the door to rescue Yuki, stating that she didn’t want him to feel anxious, as if she could sense that indeed he was just that. He quietly thanks her and then goes off with Kakeru for some fresh air.

When he’s feeling better, he pays Kakeru back for his openness by bringing up something he hasn’t brought up to anyone yet, due to it seeming “pitiful and pathetic”: regarding what he “yearns for” in Tooru, which he only just learned was something he shared with Rin. While that thing is left unsaid, I’ll be using “familial love” as a placeholder until Yuki says otherwise, but it could just as easily be “the ability to take care of oneself and others, rather than just be cared for”.

While Yuki’s adventures in StuCo lag far behind Tooru’s new connection with Rin and their efforts to break the curse in importance, it was still rewarding to learn more about Machi and Kakeru’s ties, and see Machi and Yuki become a little closer since he gave her that leaf. I wonder if Yuki sees Machi as an opportunity to prove to himself that he can indeed care for and help others, thus paying forward all that Tooru has done for him. We shall see.

Read Crow’s review of the episode here!

Hinamatsuri – 09 – A Tropical Vacay, a Promotion…and a Funeral

If Hina had simply been sent home via orb, none of the hilarity this week would have transpired. Chalk that up to an “organization” that is way more incompetent than you’d expect of an entity that deals with girls with terrifying telekinetic abilities. You’d think there’d have been some kind of revolt at this point.

Consider Mao: the “shy but capable” courier meant to deliver a new orb to Kei for Hina to use to return home (so that’s not off the table like it is for the officially-dead Anzu). Only Mao is transported to a remote tropical island just north of Indonesia, and both her orb and the spare for Hina are washed away within moments of arriving.

From there, the first act is a one-woman homage to Cast Away starring Ozawa Ari as Mao. She certainly is capable, able to survive just fine for days thanks to her ability (though why’d it take twelve days to make clothes?) Like Tom Hanks, she makes a friend—two friends, Anzu and Hina—out of coconuts. Unlike Tom Hanks, she voices both of them.

Weeks pass, and like Hanks, her hair gets longer and she develops a more stoicly intense look, while her “friends” have grown bodies. But eventually she snaps, tosses the coconuts—which are not her real friends, but just, well coconuts—off a cliff, and does what she should have done weeks ago: builds a raft and sails for the mainland (though ends up in Thailand, not Japan).

With Hina’s departure again indefinitely on hold, we move on to Nitta. He and Sabu have been ordered to pick up Nitta’s former brother Naito “The Slayer” from prison. With the president in a coma prior to naming a successor, an idiotic little power struggle plays out, thanks in equal part to Hina and Sabu.

Nitta manages to convince Naito not to challenge the lieutenant, but when Gramps wakes up and names Nitta his successor (to placate Hina, to whom he’s taken a shine), Sabu has too quick a text trigger. Both the lieutenant and Naito believe Nitta played them to steal the throne. Nitta sets the old man straight and the lieutenant is reinstalled two minutes later, but Sabu never texts this to the still-enraged lieutenant.

Before he knows it, Nitta is encased in an oil drum full of hardened concrete, with the LT and Naito ready to make him swim with the fishes. But Sabu’s chronic nausea is the first sign something is amiss. Nita’s failure to “nut up and go out like a villain” is another.

The president arrives just in time to corroborate Nitta’s defense. Once the LT and Naito realize they jumped the gun (with Sabu continuing to vomit but not own up to causing this) it’s needless to say an awkward situation. The LT decides to promote Nita to replace him on the spot, and everyone cheers him…but he just wants to be let out of the damn concrete. Where’s Hina when you need her?

Well, she and Nitta are apparently fine now after she walked in on his “one-man party.” We know this because there’s a helpful side note at the bottom of the screen. And that’s fine with me; that shortcut enables us to move on to something funnier: Hina planning a celebration for Nitta’s promotion.

She reaches out to virtually all of her amassed acquaintances, who all have different suggestions. I particularly liked Mika’s suggestion of booze…while drinking booze, stating she’s always celebrating the fact she was born, which is a slick way to excuse her alcoholism! A woman after my heart…

Hina can’t decide which persons advice to use, so she combines them. However, she isn’t able to procure booze, and spends so much on flowers she cans afford a cake, so makes one out of salt

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu – 11

What started out as a simple errand (retrieve Sukeroku and bring him back to Tokyo) becomes much, much more for Kikuhiko, due in no small part to Sukeroku’s daughter, Konatsu. The girl is pretty hostile to Kiku right up until she learns who he is, and then her demeanor rapidly shifts to tearful veneration, and she insists Kiku come with him to see her Dad.

I’ve always loved Konatsu, and lamented how little of her we’ve seen (albeit out of necessity) since Yakumo’s story began. Kobayashi Yuu isn’t quite as convincing as a five-year-old as say, Kuno Misaki, but it doesn’t matter: by the end of the episode, I was in love.

On the way to her Pops, we learn from her that her mom has run off, abandoned them, and I take her at her word (we later learn Miyokichi does this often, but always comes back eventually). She also says her mom forbade her dad to perform rakugo, and when we arrive at Konatu’s domicile, we see just how well Sukeroku functions without it.

I mean, a frikkin’ five-year-old is the breadwinner here! Things are bleak. The only thing that rouses Sukeroku from his mid-day nap is Kikuhiko’s voice, which sends him flying out of the filthy house. In a perfect reunion moment, Kiku smacks him in the face with his bag, but Sukeroku pounces on him anyway.

Kiku gets down to brass tacks, but Sukeroku is initially unwilling to hear him out: he’s done with that part of his life; rakugo has gotten “boring”; he’s out of practice; the raft of excuses is almost unending. But Kiku cuts through all that with one simple fact: ”

If people want you, you have to do it.” And Kiku is one of those people. After hearing and being envious of Sukeroku’s rakugo—and being unable to replicate it—Kiku needs it back. He’s starved for it, and wants to hear it again, and continue striving to match it, even if he never will.

Kiku doesn’t come out and say he’s been gliding along without Sukeroku around, because he hasn’t—he’s been working his ass off—but when his brother compares how he looks to a shinigami (which sends a shiver up a listening Kona’s spine), it’s clear he’s missed him.

Until Sukeroku reconsiders, Kiku is staying. He fronts cash for Sukeroku to pay off all his debts, but fully expects him to repay him by acquiring jobs in town. He’ll live with them, but insists they clean the house thoroughly. In this manner, Kiku is like a stiff, purifying breeze that blows out the cobwebs.

But Sukeroku and Kona aren’t the only two benefitting from Kiku’s stay. Kiku decides to do small performances at dinner parties and the like to pay for food and his fare home, and gets really into it. The master of the inn even presents him with a more formal performance space (ironically formerly a geisha prep room).

In a bath scene that hearkens back to one of the first between the two brothers (something Sukeroku points out but Kiku claims not to remember), Kiku does confess that he’s never felt this way abotu rakugo before; this good.Sukeroku knows why: Kiku can see his audience; there’s less physical and emotional distance between them, motivating him to strive do his best.

At times it seems like Kiku himself could settle down here as Sukeroku did, and if not thrive in the upper echelon of his craft, at least lead a happy life.

But that’s not really the case. Kiku still wants to return to Tokyo, with Sukeroku taking his rightful place as Yakumo. As always, Kiku is looking out for Sukeroku, striving to put him on the path he thinks is best. That means getting him out of debt, cleaning his house, and cutting his little girl’s hair so it’s out of her face.

In one of my favorite scenes of the whole show, Kiku scolds Kona for badmouthing her mother, then discourages her from taking up rakugo, since he earnestly believes it’s a man’s job to be on the stage performing. He then goes into a pretty woman’s crucial role as the rakugo performer’s muse, drawing out their best performance.

Konatsu then puts Kiku in checkmate by getting him to admit she looks pretty with her new haircut, so now he has to do rakugo for her!

If Kiku was enjoying himself at all the small informal gigs in town, he seems even more at ease and in the zone with an audience of just one. The story Kona makes him do—an at times creepy, at times hilarious story involving sexy ghosts or some such—is one of the best I’ve heard, and it’s made even better when Sukeroku, who can’t help himself, joins in and turns the solo performance into a duet; their first.

These are two brothers who haven’t seen each other in five years, and yet here they are, a perfect comedy duo. Perhaps the performance is technically a little rougher and unpolished than it sounded like, but who cares? Konatsu is over the moon, and Kiku is hopeful he’s shown Sukeroku why he can’t give up on rakugo. It’s not just Kiku who needs it, it’s his daughter too.

We don’t hear Sukeroku’s answer, but their performance, and Konatsu’s elation, clearly has a powerful effect on him. Then Miyokichi enters the picture, at the very end of the episode, having been handed a sign announcing a public dual rakugo performance starring Sukeroku…and Kiku-san.

Miyokichi’s reaction suggests she’s still carrying a torch for her old boyfriend after all this time, which goes a fair way in explaining why she’s not home with Sukeroku or Konatsu; perhaps the former reminds her too much of the man she really loved. The question is, will she attend the performance?

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu – 10

Five years have passed. Sukeroku and Miyokichi are long gone. They don’t even appear this week at all, and their absence is felt. I missed them, but whatever Kikuhiko feels about this, he’s soldiering on during these years.

He’s gained fame as a Shin’uchi, with the power to make total strangers leave their families and homes and burn bridges behind them just to get a shot at begging him for an apprenticeship, which he always refuses.

He feels he has nothing to teach apprentices. The successful formula he’s grasped and run with, he still scarcely knows what to make of it himself, let alone how to pass it on to others. It, being the rakugo business, is like a soap bubble; he daren’t disturb it.

However, Kiku cannot stop the march of time from taking its toll on his master Yakumo, who isn’t taking his wife’s death well. One could say she’s calling to him, and now that he has a reliable successor in Kiku, there’s little point in keeping her waiting any longer.

On his deathbed, Yakumo confesses to Kiku something new, but something that in hindsight makes sense: the “old man” who taught Sukeroku (and had that name before him) was a rival of Yakumo’s from his youth; someone he knew was the better talent, but used nepotism to snatch his father’s name from the interloper.

Obviously, Yakumo managed to become a great and revered storyteller, worthy of the name, but it’s clear, especially after taking in the young Sukeroku, that the possibility of blocking a greater talent than himself for the sake of his own pride, weighed on him greatly.

After tearlessly leading his father and master’s funeral ceremonies, Kiku gets back to work the next day. Taking the stage to new, gentler (and thus more suitable) entrance music, he eschews a sentimental story for one about an old man meeting a shinigami, who says magic words and shows him candles that represent lives, including his own, which eventually goes out.

The peformance ends with Kiku literally sprawling out on the stage as if he himself had died. And in a way, a part of him did die with his master: the part that was tied to others. When lying there soaking up applause, Kiku isn’t tearful or distraught, but relieved and elated by his new-found—and in his mind, hard-won—solitude. It’s a solitude he’ll use to hone his craft and become someone he believes worthy of being the Eighth Generation.

Before that, however, he wants to see Sukeroku. Not just to inform him of their father’s death, and recover the money Miyokichi stole, but to see how his brother doing. Kiku never had much faith Sukeroku could take care of himself, and didn’t think running off with a woman and raising a child would suddenly make him more capable of doing so.

So soon after achieving clarity through complete solitude—no master, no rival, no apprentice, no family—Kiku sets out to find old connections once more, no matter how briefly. In a town far from Tokyo, he asks an old man where rakugo is performed, and gets a predictable answer: strange for a young person such as himself to be asking about rakugo; there are far fewer such venues in town; television has taken over the hearts of most, making the world more boring.

Kiku probably agrees with all of that. But the old man also steers him in the direction of a soba restaurant, where he finds something…not boring at all: the entire crowd of diners is being entertained (and later squeezed for change) by a five-year-old girl with fiery red hair who is performing rakugo that Kiku immediately recognizes as Sukeroku’s. A little girl named Konatsu.

I loved Kiku’s little eye twitch upon their meeting. His late father believed young Sukeroku came to him as “karmic retribution” for maneuvering the older Sukeroku out of his father’s favor so many years ago.

Kiku may not know it yet, but Konatsu will end up being another kind of retribution: the kind that not only deprives him of the solitude he yearned for so dearly (not that being alone was what was best for him), but serves as a daily reminder of the brother he always believed was the greater talent. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu – 09

Things move fast this week, but most of the things that occur are basically foregone conclusions. Kikuhiko and Sukeroku both become Shin’uchi, but in his debut, Sukeroku sticks it to the association president by performing his specialty, “Inokori”, in which he must embody multiple sides of one character, Saheiji, depending on who else he’s talking to. It’s a challenging story, but Sukeroku pulls it off and gets the only approval he needs: that of the crowd.

Now a Shin’uchi, Kikuhiko is committed to shedding a woman he feels someone of his stature can no longer be with. It’s not pride so much as obligation to the structures he was raised into, which demand that a man put things above his own personal feelings. His breakup with Miyokichi had been telegraphed for some time, but that doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking when the hammer comes down.

Miyokichi, as it happens, isn’t the only one who gets dumped: as a result of his insolence in his debut, Sukeroku is taken aside by his master, who informs him Kiku, not he, will be the Eighth Generation Yakumo. Again, the writing was on the wall. As well-intending as Sukeroku is, and no matter how much practical sense it makes, he was never going to be able to successfully convince the old guard of his “change or die” views of rakugo.

For the elders, including his master, change is death; there is no difference. Oral tradition cannot truly survive if it becomes a game of Telephone. Tweaking tradition is a slippery slope, one that the elders would rather fall to their death by clinging to rather than allow it to be propped up with new ideas.

Furthermore, Sukeroku was always hampered by his modest origin; he was always an interloper, a “stray dog” who clawed his way into this world. There’s no way the master would allow such a person to succeed him, no matter how unassailable his talent. There may be TVs now, but castes still matter.

When Sukeroku argues too forcefully, Yakumo expels him, throwing him out of his house. And that’s how our two dumped and dejected people find and comfort each other.

Speaking of comfort, Kikuhiko isn’t experiencing it just because everything seems to be going his way. In his mind, Sukeroku is still better at rakugo than him, no matter how many elders or syncophants say otherwise. He’s particularly irritated when a dilettante-ish rakugo critic tears down Sukeroku in an apparent effort to curry favor. Kiku ends the interview right there.

Then Master Yakumo’s wife dies, and with mortality on his mind, he informs Kikuhiko that he intends to give him his name. Kiku’s initial reaction is that it’s a mistake; Sukeroku should get the name; he’s more skilled; he doesn’t have any skill compared to that raw talent. But Yakumo reproaches his apprentice.

It’s not Kiku’s place to tell him who he should give his name to, nor to say whether he’s better or worse than Sukeroku. Just like his brother, Kiku spoke out of place, but out of humility and inferiority, not arrogance and outsize obligation to take rakugo upon his shoulders and “save” it, as Sukeroku wants to do. There’s more to being Eighth Generation than being The Best At Rakugo. 

As Kiku continues to thrive but derive no joy from anything other than doing rakugo, Sukeroku and the scorned Miyokichi quickly shack up together and become an item. Just as Sukeroku and Kikuhiko must embody different people to perform their stories to suit their audiences, so too does Miyo, a skilled and experienced geisha, know how to be exactly the woman a particular man wants. She could be classy and prudish for Kiku, whom she loved, but knows Sukeroku less propriety.

I’m glad Miyo doesn’t waste any more time than she needs to worrying about Kiku; what’s done is done, and she’s moving on with someone who actually wants to be with her. Sukeroku doesn’t know if he’s quite that person yet…but he does like boobies. There’s something sad and close-looped about the two being depressed about the same person—Kikuhiko—but they must make do with each other.

Also, she doesn’t have time to wait around or worry; she has a baby on the way, and wants to raise it in the countryside. Her geisha house is shut down, so she steals the till with the intention of running off with Sukeroku.

He stops by Kiku’s not for money or a place to stay, but to say goodbye, even as Kiku urges him to make peace with the master so he can give him his name. Sukeroku knows what he has to do to get back in the good graces of their master, and he can’t do it. He tells Kiku about Miyo and the baby and the country, and Kiku is not happy.

What is Kiku going to do without Sukeroku around annoying him and challenging him to be his best? What is he going to do with Yakumo’s name when he’s certain his drunk, uncouth, stray dog of a brother deserves it more? Someone he wants to punch and embrace in the same moment?

These unanswerable questions (which must attempt to be answered anyway, one day at a time) sow the seeds of a bitterness and regret that will stay with Kiku for years, then made worse one day when Sukeroku loses his life in his prime. That bitterness will come to define the man telling this story to Yotarou and Konatsu in the present.