“Descending Stories”, a Manga About Rakugo, The Past, and Growth
Descending Stories (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu in Japan) is a manga written and drawn by Haruko Kumota that ran from 2010 to 2016, winning the 38th Kodansha Manga Awards for Best General Manga and the New Creator Prize of the 21st Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2017. It also got an anime adaptation, which is better known in the West.
Before I talk about the manga itself, I have to give a bit of context about what Rakugo is — it is a kind of entertainment where the artist tells an (often comical, touching, or both) story, it’s a mix of narration to describe scenarios and characters, and acting the different characters in the story, visualizing the story will then depend on both the execution and the imagination of the public.
Although the performer will act the mannerisms and way of speaking of the characters, they’ll do so while sitting down in a cushion the whole time, all while only having a paper fan, a piece of cloth, a bookstand, a wooden clapper, and a Japanese fan available as props — and even then the usage of some of them depends on what part of Japan the artist is from. Performers breathe life into their stores, tweaking the tone and the stories to suit their personalities, and the venue and public.
Note that Rakugo has been historically been performed by men, although there’s a growing presence of female performers, and the topic is touched by this manga, and it’s important in the development of one of its characters, but it’s not the main theme.
As far as spoilers go, I’ll try to keep them to a minimum.
Art
While I don’t like to catalog manga by the kind of publication they are part of, the art here does have Josei vibes — Josei refers to comics aimed at adult women —using thin lines and often having elegant and sharp looking people, although the author isn’t shy about drawing them in a simplified fashion for comedic purpose.
Backgrounds will let you know where the characters are, or when it isn’t essential for the panel it might serve as a complement to character expressions in order to convey their feelings. The art is more than suitable to serve as the vehicle for the story it’s trying to tell and helping us immerse in the Rakugo stories when needed.
Setting and Story
There are two time periods in place, the present time is just modern-day Japan and will keep skipping ahead as the manga progress, while flashbacks go back to WW2-era Japan. It shows the middle of the war to post-war, but it doesn’t really show any combat, instead, it shows more of the society at the time as well as the effect of the war on Rakugo itself. The author makes a thought experiment — a what if — with the art of Rakugo widely hinging on a single person as its popularity dwindled over time (and how one of the protagonists refused to ever take apprentices).
The story starts with our protagonist being released from prison, his first destination a Yose — a kind of theater where Rakugo is performed — in order to meet and train under Yakumo, a prominent artist, the problem being that he’s known for his stubbornness and never having taken an apprentice, but against all odds, he decides to take the protagonist on a whim and naming him Yotaro — Rakugo artists use stage name usually given to them by their masters — but rather than seeing him as a pupil, he mostly treats him as a pet, due to his friendly and eager nature, but even if Yakumo won’t teach him directly, Yotaro is determined to learn from him and every source he can find.
Yakumo lives along with Matsuda, who has been serving Rakugo artists before Yakumo became one, and Konatsu, his adoptive daughter who he took in after her father — a Rakugo artist as well — died. Even though Konatsu was a kid when her father died, she suspects that Yakumo had a hand on it, and as a result, their relationship is bad. That suspicion, along with the fact that she can’t continue her father’s legacy due to being born a woman, made her develop as a sharp-tongued and easily angered person, bogged down by hate and frustration.
While this manga features many Rakugo stories, some are told in more detail than others, and those usually end up featured again, this repetition is done to highlight changes in character over time, or to show the difference between the two of them by contrasting the way they perform the same piece, helping the pieces feel more personal and shedding some light to their personality.
Descending Stories is a human drama that has Rakugo as a vehicle to move the story and more, with tragedy and jealousy, guilt and pride, but also friendship and joy, and Rakugo as a form of self-expression. It also features the question of how to make Rakugo persists through time and a debate about tradition versus adaptation.
Conclusion
If I had to describe this in two words, I’d call it a slow drama, where we have relationships in the present that are partially explained by what happened in the past, untangling their connections and allowing us to understand what makes the characters tick, making them all the more compelling and real the more you read.
If you want to get this manga, and you can travel to the past, then you can buy it on Humble Bundle, otherwise, you can use INKR, where you can read the first 3 chapters for free, or you can buy it from Amazon (if you happen to have kindle unlimited then you can read up to volume 8 for free, but 9 and 10 are paid).
Note that I have no relationship with these companies and I don’t earn anything if you click these links.
