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Forum - View topicThe Magic of the Stage in Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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The right review at the right time. Great job Nick.
And yes, this is far and away the best anime of the season and there is no "elevator pitch" for it. Many audiences that should see this will never even have heard of Rakugo before. I would go one further and say not only is this the best anime but also the most important anime, and not of this season but of the last several years. Can anyone think of anything that rises to this level in that time? |
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Dop.L
Posts: 725 Location: London |
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Great write-up Nick. I think not only is this the best show of the season, but by the end of the year it'll be topping the best of the year lists. Someone will have to go a long way to beat it, that's for sure.
It is important that shows like this DO get made, and I only wish it would happen more often. |
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Thunder_God
 Posts: 6 |
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Shirobako's, last year's top show, or Ping Pong, 2014's top show? 
Shirobako may not use the same directorial tools and careful touch that Rakugo Shinju does, relying on other things more, but Ping Pong certainly does. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1946 |
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Well said. Thanks for this great article, Nick! Perhaps it will inspire some more people to give this wonderful show a chance. |
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justsomeaccount
 Posts: 471 |
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Nice article, although if you were afraid of people complaining about only talking about direction you could have started the article by saying "hey Rakugo is an art where they tell the same stories and what makes their performers remarkable is their subtle acting, timing and all that jazz, so it's just fair to do the same with the show itself"
One problem though I personally have with part of these articles are the linked images throughout the text that you have to open, it often breaks the flow of the article to just show a little casual example to prove what the particular phrase means, because the page goes to the one of the picture and then you have to go back, search where you were in the text and remember the context before going on. But I know that's hard to solve, the only thing that I would think of is a static picture at the right of the website that goes down among the article and changes depending if you click the particular phrase, but that also creates the problem of covering the right colum and it would be quite a work to program correctly to be only used with Nick's articles and that's it, so I get it. |
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Shippoyasha
Posts: 459 |
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Good breakdown!
I do agree that Rakugo stories are often well known, so the focus usually is on the storyteller almost exclusively than the story itself. It is very similar to how almost everybody knows Shakespeare and the best part of Shakespeare theater is the actor and what they bring to a story. Not the story itself. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5506 Location: Iscandar |
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To me Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is also the best anime of this season, and an early candidate for anime of the year. It is also my favorite show of this season.
I get that Rakugo is a crucial part of the show, but what really captured me was the amazing character writing. Before watching this show I knew nothing about Rakugo, but it did not matter because the other elements in the show are so well executed and crafted. You do not have to be an expert on Rakugo to enjoy this anime. I hope that this anime continues to be great and that someone licenses it for physical release. |
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Brand
 Posts: 1029 |
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I was thinking the same thing. I would be nice if the images opened in a light box on the same page when clicking on the link. Or maybe when you hovered over the link a small version of the image appears. Not sure how hard to code that into ANN wold be but I think it would be a nice feature. A great article though. This is a show I'd love more of my friends to watch but it is so hard to sell because it is basically a period piece (and not one about Samurai or Ninja). It is so well done though. I might have to force a few people to watch it. LOL |
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Nazca Lily #837256
 Posts: 30 |
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Excellent review.
Watching the rakugo parts remind me of listening to folk tales and Korean p'ansori (which, yes, is not spoken but sung) |
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Knoepfchen
 Posts: 698 |
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Thank you, Nick. Great observations, as usual. Let's hope many people will discover this treasure. And good to see many already have.
I cherish this show. Its characters feel so vivid and real, the direction and editing are simply fantastic, and the voice actors breathe so much life into their characters and rakugo performances, I'm glued to the screen. Funny that an anime should revive my love for the performing arts, something I though left me a long time ago. |
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Korogoro
Posts: 83 |
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Well, like some have already said, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu is probably the best anime of the season, I'm sure the coming episodes are going to be extremely sad and heartbreaking, I'm not ready.
I really like the rakugo bits, it seems like most people only found out what rakugo is after watching Rakugo Shinjuu so if you want some sort of 'recommendation', I will say: you should watch Joshiraku. It's 'supposed' to be a rakugo anime but it's mostly a slice of life, cute girls doing not so cute things and well, also lots of sightseeing... there's actually no rakugo even if the name of the anime is girl-rakugo.
I think Kekkai Sensei is great, Matsumoto Rie is an excellent director. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I would consider YuriKuma Arashi to be pretty darn important. I also second Shirobako and Ping Pong as excellent and important anime. Honestly, I have a very long list of shows that I consider as important as this, but that's okay. We both agree that this is a phenomenal show. It's a shame that so few people are catching it each week. For those of you wishing it wouldn't replace the article when you open any of the images or links, try using a new tab. I just right click and open them in a new tab as I read, and then go back to them after each paragraph. Works much more fluidly, in my opinion, and it's really not a hassle at all. |
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Carlooo
Posts: 58 |
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Cool article! Really taught me something about film in general, by way of a series I'm pretty excited for.
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Parsifal24
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Good explanation of the visual storytelling of the series coming from a literature background. I tend to be rather ignorant of things like shot composition, blocking, and other parts of the visual grammar of film. and Anime. So it's nice to see an explanation that also gives examples of what is being described in the text.
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