Kikuhiko finally begins to discover his own Rakugo.
What They Say:
Episode 6 – Kikuhiko is feeling better about himself after the success of the play, with the audience hanging on his every word and gesture. Sukeroku tells him that he had a similar experience during the war, and that ever since then, he decided that he would do rakugo for the people. He asks Kikuhiko what he’s doing rakugo for, but Kikuhiko, who has always done rakugo to secure a place to live, has never even considered the question.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Following his successful night in the theater, Kikuhiko becomes introspective about his childhood and some of the defining experiences of his life. As a youngster and child of a geisha, young Bon trained in traditional dance out of proximity more than in preparation for a future career. After all, a boy cannot become a geisha, right? Overhearing the whispered ridicule from the other women tore at his confidence, and attempting to learn the craft of Rakugo only seemed to make him more uncomfortable with himself. These memories cause Kikuhiko to wonder once again where he might begin to uncover “his”
rakugo – a performance style all his own.
He continues to get compliments on the feminine and sensual style of acting he portrayed in the play, and as he practices late into the night he’s repeatedly encouraged by Sukeroku. He emphasizes once again, echoing one of his earlier comments, that Kiku is truly cut-out for “that sexy stuff” – roles that focus on feminine wiles and romantic entanglements. Realizing that Sukeroku, or Shin, has been right this whole time is both relieving and frustrating.
Following yet another of Sukeroku’s boisterous, over-the-top (and crowd-pleasing) performances, Kikuhiko presents “Shinagawa Shinju,” a story revolving around a high-ranking geisha and her goal of committing love suicide. Sukeroku’s energetic style helps to keep the crowd lively and entertained, but Kikuhiko’s subtle movements, physical presentation of the characters, and sly delivery draw in the audience in a striking way. He conjures up imagery of a candlelit brothel at night, and of a woman still beautiful but past her prime. This, this, is Kiku’s Rakugo. Finally he can own that.
If episode 5 was the first inkling of Kikuhiko’s blossoming as a performer, this episode serves to seal the deal. Kiku shows the first definitive signs of being the accomplished performer we see in the first double-length episode of the series, and what makes that truly satisfying is the fact that his development was plain to see and incredibly fascinating all along. But while that’s definitely an incredibly interesting storyline, what drew me in during this episode (which I ended up watching twice for various reasons), was the interesting things it had to say regarding gender and how that is reflected in a theatrical setting.
I’ve always had an interest in the Japanese theatrical art forms, but especially the ones that are traditionally single-sex like Noh and Kabuki (and on the other end of the spectrum, Takarazuka Theater with its all-female casts). What’s interesting is that, when actors of one sex are trained to perform the opposite sex, they often do so using extremely exaggerated gendered vocal tones, bodily movements, and slang. The Otokoyaku of Takarazuka present themselves as the type of men that only show up in fairy tales – tall, brash, dashing, handsome, and romantic. They’re an ideal to which no real person should be held, but they’re also a gender coded fantasy that’s easily decipherable. The washed-up Oiran that Kikuhiko portrays is constructed of a lilting voice and demure body movements; extremely “feminine” and the fantasy of what a high-ranking courtesan might be. And this image of femininity is conjured up by a man who, while not overly-masculine, definitely seems to have the interest of several women and has never seemed especially “effeminate.” One interesting thing about Otokoyaku is that women seem to love them because they represent the “perfect” man, while men desire them as wives because their training in masculinity supposedly means that they are more understanding and sympathetic of the things men go through. It’s maybe a little bit goofy to suggest, but part of me thinks that that’s why Kikuhiko seems so attractive – his portrayal of women hits on a nerve somehow, and women feel like his acting represents some deeper understanding of their situation.
This might be more true than it seems at first, judging by Kiku’s brief flashback to his time spent as a child among geisha. Whether out of pity or amusement or some other reason, he had begun to receive some of the same basic instruction as the other geisha trainees; one young boy in a room full of women. The background chatter makes the situation clear – “oh, if only he had been born a woman,” one of the women laments. In this environment, his training clashes with his sex, but despite that it seems to have informed and influenced him as well; as he’s now just beginning to discover, perhaps his early training among women has given him a very specific bonus skill – it makes his portrayal of sexy women more captivating because of his ability to move gracefully. Now that the “gender issues” I thought might show up early on have started to come to the forefront, I’ll be interested to see how the series further tackles the strange contradictions between what’s theatrically “masculine” and “feminine,” and what humans are actually like, especially as it applies to Konatsu and Yakumo’s unwillingness to teach her.
The other big takeaway from this episode for me was the growing tension between Kikuhiko and Sukeroku. It’s not yet something sinister, in my opinion; Kikuhiko has always seemingly been envious of his companion’s natural abilities and the two tend to butt heads personality-wise but it’s not something that threatens to tear the friends apart. But there’s a truly memorable scene about halfway through the episode where Sukeroku reminds Kiku that he just knew Kiku was cut-out for “that sexy stuff” – Rakugo stories involving women and love suicides and what-not. It’s true – several episodes ago, when the men were younger and barely starting to set out on their performance journey, Hatsu said that very thing. As Sukeroku falls asleep, happily drunk, Kikuhiko wrestles with the knowledge that his friend’s sense of the type of performer he is was more informed than his own knowledge of himself, and he’s both relieved to have the freedom to proceed with his own Rakugo, but also frustrated and saddened that Sukeroku, despite his appearances, is so incredibly perceptive. The animation does a great job of capturing Kiku’s anguish at this point while never actually showing his full face; I really appreciate how this gave voice to his feelings without also feeling forced or manipulative.
In Summary:
I struggle in circumstances like this where gender essentialism is such a primary requirement for understanding a situation. I believe so much in the idea that gender is a social construct and it is also a continuum, so this particular story line which hinges so greatly on Kikuhiko’s ability to project a very specific idea of femininity, coded to be obvious to observers, is difficult for me to wrap my head around. But for those same reasons, I also find it fascinating. I continue to find single-sex theater to be a really interesting way to look at the conflict between societal ideals/expectations, and reality, and this episode in particular has done a good job of at least suggesting that perhaps being a member of both separate societal spheres helps to create a more complete human being (it has at least helped to give Kikuhiko a set of skills that he would not otherwise have at his disposal). The interference of fantasy ideals with real-life doesn’t always go so well, however, and I wonder if there is some foreshadowing here: Kikuhiko’s tale of love-suicide gone awry as well as this anime’s title (which contains the word for “double suicide”) seem to maybe be suggesting that this element of so many Japanese stories might rear its ugly head as an element affecting our characters in fairly short order here.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Samsung Galaxy S5 running the Crunchyroll Android App at 1080p
