For the ones that don’t know, the anime is the term that is used to refer to all the animation that comes from Japan. It has a really characteristic style and you may have seen it…big eyes, colorful hairs, small mouths and big smiles. Something like this:
What if I tell you that this series that at first sight seem to be for child has a more mature and in some cases dark and cruel side? The anime has a lot of different genres, from the kodomo, which is from children and has characters and histories that are innocent, funny and in sometimes very fantasious (animes like Heidi, Pokemon, Digimon and Hamtaro); to the gore, that is the most bloody, crude and cruel type of anime, it has really (and some, really, really) hard scenes (animes like Elfen Lied, Blood+, Akira Higurashi no koro ni, etc.) . It has a really big spectre and with the pass of the years (from 1917) that spectre has being growing. But, I think that the most recurrent themes on the anime are: love, friendship, nature, technology and adventures, but, the anime world is so huge that this is not the 100% of them.
Well, with this little and general introduction I will go to the point: one of the best animes that I have seen lately. I started to saw it on April of the last year and from the first episode it captivated me because it was different of what I always see, in anime I usually see more of the fantasious, Shonen and suspense type, and to encounter a anime like “Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu” was like to open a door to another type of anime, more realistic. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (from now on just ‘Shouwa Gen’) is an anime that is based on a manga (is like the “Japanese comic” that is made just in white-black scale, more details in other occasion) wrote by Haruko Kumota, and actually it has two seasons and two OVAS (just google it…). The first season (13 chapters) was released the second of April of the past year and the second (12 chapters) the seventh of January of the present year, you should now, I’m not a very patient person and even so I followed it since it was released on April and I wait every week to see another chapter. The anime genre is denominated as Historical Fiction and Josei and it is set (more or less) in the Japan of the XX century and also in the present Japan.
Is so much to talk about this anime that if I don’t start for the beginning I just will get lost, so, permit me to tell you after this introduction in the anime, what I love of it. First of all, the axis of all the serie is the Rakugo (3. Is a japanese art that consist on telling a history in a “monologue style” using just a handkerchief and a fan. I consider it like the art of “simplicity and masks”), our main characters are rakugo tale tellers and along the series are several scenes in which the characters are telling the stories. At this point I should say, the first time I saw it I was really impressed and excited to know another type of japanese art (I like japanese culture a lot), by the approaches and angles that the chapter has and that made the stories develop better, and also by the fresh anime plot, so the first chapter was really interesting for me, but, when I saw it on a second time with my mom I notice that I enjoy it a lot because I was in a way immersed in the japanese culture and in the anime world, which is very different to all the series and movies that we are used to, it has a different rhythm. BUT, I assure that seeing the whole serie is really worth and this is why:
Shouwa Gen shows a little of Japan history, before the Second World War and when Japan received a lot more influences of the occidental lifestyle. In the serie you can perceive this change in the environments of the anime and in the worries of the characters. That worries born from the problem that Japan was changing and people interests too, and for the Rakugo, that is a very traditional and conservative art, was a really tough hit (as much in real life like in the anime). In this situation you can perceive clearly the feelings of the characters towards rakugo, their ways to use it to know themselves, their ways of express themselves on stage and also what they believe that rakugo is and what should be on a future. Shouwa Gen has a very complex characters, that grew and grew in each chapter, and so their relationships. Shouwa Gen may look like the typical “telenovela” of grandma’s TV, but it is completely different, what I mean with this is that sometimes is dramatic and it has complicated love relationships, but is not at all (not even close) to the dramatism and the complicated, confusing and the unfaithful relationship of the “telenovelas”, they are a mature and very Japanese, kind of relationships with unexpected ends. If you don’t like the cheesy and happy ever after histories this is your anime.
This anime shows almost all what means to be human, the characters may seem flat, but, they have a lot of psychology behind. This complexity contrast with the simplicity and in some cases banality of the stories that Rakugo tells, and with the simplicity of the art. It shows the fears, the worries, the happiness, the hate, the love, the sadness and guilty that people can experiment and how they endure that.
But, just seeing all the anime you can notice this and a lot of other things that makes this such a great anime. Of course it will not be for everyone, it has a lot of japanese comedy and also a very loud and energetic character (that I know some people hate), and some might be bored by the Rakugo, but, if you give it a chance you will be surprised how much you will be emotionally involved with the personages.
