English Dub Review: Akane-banashi “Performer”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Hikaru gets her chance to perform and chooses a story very familiar to Akane. After Hikaru, Akane performs “Jugemu” again, despite the odds being against her.
OUR TAKE
Last week gave us a profile on Karashi and his own way of doing Rakugo, so this week gives the spotlight, both figuratively and literally, to Hikaru the voice actress, who looks even more like an anime character than Akane with her pink highlights. We only get the first half of the episode to dive into Hikaru’s background and motivations, but we learn enough, I think. As mentioned before, she’s a famous voice actress in a popular magical girl anime , but despite landing the lead role for that show, her peers only judge her as having gotten it because she’s pretty. Which you think would be more of an advantage in live action acting, but this sort of backchat is clearly more about jealous people coping than any sort of logic. Regardless, Hikaru plans to prove the haters wrong by winning this Rakugo competition, and getting approval and praise from an expert in that field like Issho Arakawa would show everyone once and for all that she has the skills to be a great actor, no matter the type. And it turns out, despite apparently being a bit on the melodramatic side, she manages to get some kind words from Issho.
As for Akane, she takes notice of Hikaru’s coincidental choice of performance, Shibahama, which is exactly the story that her father gave all those years ago in front of Issho…and then led to his expulsion. To be fair, it wasn’t JUST him who got expelled, so it’s not like it was just him who irked Issho, but if he’s able to give a thoughtful critique of a different performance of the same story, what happened that day that made him go as far as expelling Akane’s father and those others all at once? Well, Akane’s hoping she can ask him, but that can only happen if she wins this competition. And she’s decided to perform Jugemu, the story about the kid with a comedically long name, again to see if it will land better than Karashi and Hikaru’s stories. It’s a steep climb ahead, as others point out. Karashi and Hikaru are the two favorites to win, so the audience seems to have already tuned out for anyone else, and this is a story that Akane already did, so even if it wasn’t a well known classic, everyone here has already heard it. But regardless, Akane is steadfast, but will she succeed? It looks like we’ll find out next time!
