Anime you've never heard of: Joshiraku

Rakugo-source-Wikipedia Commons

I'm going to be doing this a lot because I'm out of things to do. My anime of the day that you probably haven't heard of: Joshiraku. https://myanimelist.net/anime/12679/Joshiraku

It's an anime about one of Japan's most honored and traditional art forms, Rakugo. Rakugo translates to "Fallen Words" in Japanese, and is a performance art where a single storyteller sits on a pillow in traditional style and tells a story from multiple perspectives using only their voice and their body language.

Joshiraku--Source: Myanimelist.net

But this show isn't about the actual performance. It's about five girls and the meta mayhem they get up to behind the curtain in the dressing room. There are a lot of quick-worded pure Japanese word games thrown about, and a lot of heavy deep culture references that Americans--not even the culturally relevant ones--would get. There is also a lot of enjoyable straight up plain comedy that will get pretty much anyone laughing.

Notably, the middle third of each episode features the five girls in street clothes going to famous locations throughout the Tokyo Bay area. It's a pretty good replacement for an actual sightseeing tour, and you'll get to learn a lot about Japanese culture and tourism.

Be warned, there is a little bit of sexual humor, but I'll be arguing in my next post why this should be tolerated by Americans as a cultural allowance in the same way we tolerate other cultural artifacts.

Overall, the best way to enjoy this deep dive into Japanese language and culture is to binge it all at once, because this show is one that you shouldn't miss. If you want to become an anime aficionado, you have to try this show, or else your portfolio won't be complete.