Descending Stories: Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū

Episode 2

Having spent much of the first episode introducing characters and reiterating themes, this week gets into the nitty gritty of the cast's woes in the moment and what they'll have to face going forward. The bulk of the action focuses on Yotaro. While he's ascended to the master rank in the rakugo hierarchy, this lovable ex-con is still struggling to find his own voice as a performer. His style is widely acknowledged to be an imitation of the late Sukeroku's, and audiences are beginning to lose interest in that. To add insult to injury, the tabloids have run a scandal piece on his history with the yakuza. While Yotaru cut ties with the organization long ago, this dredging up of the past has caused a dent in his popularity and brought back some unprocessed feelings of shame for him. These tough circumstances have pushed Yotaro into a personal rut – he's performing poorly and even resorting to embarrassing gimmicks to liven up his rakugo. Our rambunctious rakugoka is going through a rough patch, and while he doesn't find all the answers within the span of this episode, he does scrounge up the motivation to keep moving forward.

Amaken is another "new" character whose larger role was cut from the broadcast release of the first episode. He had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in the first season's flashback material, as the son of that critic who tried to butter Yakumo up following Sukeroku's expulsion. As an adult, Amaken seems to have followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a gadfly to Tokyo's theater community. On the one hand, he shows up to taunt Yotaro over the yakuza scandal, which is a low blow. But on the other, he correctly diagnoses Yotaro's issues as a performer, indicating that he does possess some critical chops. For all of his cruelty, Amaken does appear to be on Yotaro's side. He's genuinely interested in rakugo's survival and insists that he won't factor Yotaro's past into his review – it's just that he won't go easy on him either. Satisfying Amaken as the harsh representative of the critical community seems like it'll serve to show whether Yotaro has found his own rakugo or not. He also contrasts with Higuchi, a critic who's taken a personal interest in Yotaro's development and represents a sort of blended artistic and critical knowledge of the form's history.

Speaking of Higuchi, he's more forgiving of Yotaro's blunders. He tries to cheer him up with some post-performance drinking, but the two run into Yakumo at the geisha house. Yotaro is apologetic – in light of recent events, he feels like a burden – but Yakumo reassures him. He doesn't think poorly of Yotaro based on his past, encouraging him not to feel ashamed of it. Yotaro rushes home, eager to continue practicing, while Yakumo stays behind with Higuchi.

In the meantime, Konatsu continues to navigate the difficulties of caring for an infant. She's no longer a single mother – she and Yotaro are married, if only on paper – but she still seems to get stuck with most of the childcare duties anyway. What a surprise. To be fair, Yotaro at least has a job, but there's not much of an excuse for Yakumo, who's around the house plenty after taking some time off from work. Instead of helping out, Grandpa Grumpypants seems content to lounge around in casual denial of the fact that this newly minted person is a member of his family, and thus his responsibility as well. When the baby wanders to his side one day, Yakumo reacts as expected – awkwardly speaking to it as if it were an adult and deriding Konatsu for letting it out of her sight. When he tries to return her spawn, he finds her collapsed from exhaustion and in the middle of a bad dream. In a sudden 180 from his previous demeanor, he rushes to reassure her in the same way that Sukeroku used to when she was a little girl. When she wakes up, the scene immediately turns hostile, as the two are more confused than comforted by this sudden display of intimacy.

This leads to an emotional confrontation between them. Konatsu admits that she wishes that she could kill Yakumo, but her desire for her child to experience his rakugo overwhelms this urge. Yakumo responds with a lament – he wishes that he could just up and die already (taking rakugo with him) but stupid babies keep showing up and obligating him to stick it out a little longer. This situation summarizes the show's basic conflict at this point: Yakumo is a miserable old jerk who lived an unfulfilling life and wants to destroy the only thing of value that he possesses – rakugo – as a consolation prize/vengeance against the world. (Since he's not a total psychopath, he feels bad about these desires and projects them onto his memories of Miyokichi, a woman who wanted something similar in her own life.) What's stopping him is the obligation to pass rakugo off within his lifetime, symbolized by the fact that he keeps having to take care of kiddos like Yotaro, Konatsu, and her baby. The fact that he hasn't just up and died in spite of these feelings shows that, for all his grumbling, there's still hope for him – part of him still loves both Konatsu and rakugo in a benevolent way, not just as extensions of his own selfish desires. The same is true for Konatsu, just from the opposite perspective. That moment of tenderness between them proves that reconciliation is still possible, no matter how much easier it might be for them to pretend otherwise. Still, their problems remain far from resolved, and they never will be if the two maintain this emotional deadlock.

In the end, Higuchi reveals some penetrating insight into Yakumo's character. He's sussed out his plans for a “double suicide” with rakugo and even brings up Miyokichi's name. I have no idea how he got this information, but it puts Yakumo in an uncomfortably vulnerable position. Meanwhile, Yotaro sees Konatsu getting out of a stranger's car with her baby, reviving his anxieties about the status of their newfound family. This episode was dedicated to articulating all the schisms within the Yurakutei family, and it doesn't look like these guys will be given much time to come up with solutions.

Grade: A

Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.