Akane-banashi Volumes 4-6 Manga Review

In the wake of the Karaku Cup, Akane comes face to face with the man responsible for ending her father's dream and setting her on the path she's chosen. But will she have the courage to ask him why, and more importantly, what will she do when confronted with the truth? Then, Akane's next journey begins, bringing her into conflict not with a grand villain, but with the mundanity of workplace harassment, hierarchies, sexism, and juggling her personal dreams with the very real need to work within the bounds of the professional world of rakugo.

Akane-Banashi is translated by Stephen Paul with lettering by Snir Aharon.

In the wake of the Karaku Cup, Akane comes face to face with the man responsible for ending her father's dream and setting her on the path she's chosen. But will she have the courage to ask him why, and more importantly, what will she do when confronted with the truth? Then, Akane's next journey begins, bringing her into conflict not with a grand villain, but with the mundanity of workplace harassment, hierarchies, sexism, and juggling her personal dreams with the very real need to work within the bounds of the professional world of rakugo.

Akane-Banashi is translated by Stephen Paul with lettering by Snir Aharon.

Volume four is where I truly fell in love with Akane-banashi, for one specific reason: Issho Arakawa. As much as I love Akane as a protagonist and have grown to love her growth and journey over the run of the series, Issho is equally important and valuable to the strength of the series for how unique a “villain” he really is. There's often discussion about compelling villains and “reasonable” ones who are supposed to have potentially good ideas but poor execution, like many of the Shonen Jump villains of yore. But Issho Arakawa isn't a world-destroying supervillain; he's the pinnacle of an art form, and he believes he is responsible for its security and sanctity. His confrontation with Akane is compelling and thrilling, setting much of the foundation for the series that, upon rereading it for this review, I have to commend Yūki Suenaga's foresight; so many important plot points are set up in this single volume. If the first three volumes didn't fully hook you, volume four is absolutely the make-or-break for the series. If Akane's confrontation with Issho doesn't compel you to continue, then not much that comes after will.

Speaking of, volumes 4-6 begin the Zenza Training Arc, in which Akane's proper entrance into the professional world of Rakugo truly begins. While the first arc introduced the major motion and players, as well as setting Akane up as our protagonist to care for, the Zenza Arc takes the rose colored glasses off the portrayal of rakugo as a profession; almost immediately, Akane is forced to confront that she is no longer protected by her master, Shiguma, or his disciples, and that the working world is one filled with people whose petty grievances, lust for power, and enjoyment of mundane hierarchy can mean the end of one's career no matter how talented you happen to be. This arc is a bit of a downer, as the story grinds to a halt while the writers focus on how brutal the professional world of “art” can be, hammered home by a heavy focus on the sexism inherent in the rakugo world.

This latter part is offset by the newest rakugoka master that Akane trains under, the harsh, beautiful, and commanding Urara Ransaika. Urara and Akane are an interesting substitute teacher/pupil combination, with Urara's no-nonsense approach offsetting the narrative about being a woman in a supposed man's world; there's not a lot of “girl power” narrative here, just the cold, hard facts that while men's sexism can kneecap people, in a performance art, it is the strength of one's art and the response of the crowd that truly matters. These volumes also help develop the secondary cast more, as Rokuro, Hikaru, Kaisei, and Karashi all get some time to shine and get better known by the audience, rather than being treated as one-off characters with flat development; these characters are also professionals working on their craft, and the manga treats them as such.

As far as her development as a protagonist is concerned in general, though, Akane continues to be one of the best Jump, if not manga, protagonists in a while. She does suffer real setbacks, and the juxtaposition of her innate performing skills with her lack of interpersonal ones makes her fun to watch; rather than simply succeeding on the merit of just her performance, multiple characters continue to point out that she is essentially a spoiled child floating on that same talent, and that at some point, she's going to have to contend with the fact that her limited roster of stories, her acumen, and her overall focus, avenging her father, are all going to eventually leave her hanging if she doesn't figure out how to actually be both a professional and an artist. As volume six comes to a close, we get more insights into the fascinating workings of Issho, as well as Kaisei's backstory, where his cool and almost seductive demeanor from the earlier volumes is replaced by one of contempt for Akane; after all, as Issho's main pupil, and someone who seems to owe much of his life to Issho, what other feeling could Kaisei have towards the girl everyone is talking about instead of him? Still, Kaisei also sees value in Akane, dropping a hint, or a trap, at her feet before the close of the volumes: a Zenza training event held by Ikken Arakawa, one of the Arakawa 4.

There is a little bit of weakness, though, as some of the narrative about Akane's confrontations with toxic co-workers, superiority and hierarchy, and the conflict between her wunderkind status and the reality that she has had everything handed to her but has developed very little of her own skillset is undercut by her being saved in the story by those same connections; her petty attempt to get back at a toxic Futatsume costs her respect and job opportunities, but she's also summarily saved almost immediately by the all-star cast of “main characters” that orbit her as the actual main character of a manga. This is perhaps nitpicking, as the manga is still excellent and the narrative compelling, but Akane being thrown into the professional world only to have Rokuro (and by extension, her own master and then Urara) swoop in to save the day, and Akane swaying hearts and minds with her performance, are maybe the most fantastical parts of the narrative. The “villains” of this arc, so to speak, are dispatched by the narrative and sheepishly converted to allies, rather than presenting any realistic stumbling point. Maybe that's the jaded adult in me who has seen how workplace toxicity is often never truly fair or punished, and that people who don't deserve to succeed often do, while those who work exceptionally hard find their dreams in flames, but it does make some of this arc's narrative a bit juvenile in execution.