Akane-banashi

Episode 11

Episode 11 of Akane-banashi is a cooldown entry after last week's emotional high point and is a welcome reprieve for all.

Any great victory deserves a celebration. Akane gets that in this episode, with a lot of joyful noise being made by her fellows. There is singing and dancing and drinking and eating and all-around goofballery for most of the runtime. This is all a vital way to relieve the high-stakes tension from the Karaku Cup. The audience needs time to process the big win and see the pieces move into place for the next big event. The latter doesn't happen just yet, but it is beginning to take shape in due time.

The other big element for this week is the reflections on past events. Akane has to come face to face with the idea - perhaps fact - that her dad's rakugo simply was not up to par. Was it, on its own, so bad that he deserved to be expelled? Probably not. But given that, as a performing art, it is facing a slow decline into oblivion, Issho Arakawa has at least planted the seed in her mind that only the best can succeed and help return the art form to prominence. In that light, her dad's art was likely not up to snuff; we live in a distracted era where good enough is simply no longer good enough. I'm sure we can all feel that pressure in every field or avenue of life, as we try to make an impression in a world where everyone is increasingly hemmed in by a thousand things scrambling for immediate attention. Only excellence can cut deep enough to make a lasting impact, and what was once an acceptable performance may no longer be finely honed enough to break through.

The party scene itself was quite fun, if a bit of a lesser visual entry. There were lots of still frames and very simple goofball reaction shots that were fine, but not up to quite the same fidelity as prior entries have been. That's fine, it's a lower-stakes episode, and it can't all be relentless top-shelf animation every week. That said, it was a noticeable drop, and the jokes weren't funny enough (nor the emotional reveals dramatic enough) to distract from the simpler presentation. I'm hoping it's all part of the plan to deliver big next week as we head into the final stretch for the season.

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