Saturday I went to a rakugo theater in Asakusa. I was in Tokyo anyway for an “internship” (in the japanese sense of the word), so it was a chance i didn’t want to miss. Too bad there were hardly any real rakugo performances… I got the impression that the actual rakugo storytellers only just finished with the introduction by their time was over.

Maybe one or two of the zenza (lowest of the three rakugo performer ranks) actually told a whole rakugo story, the rest (even the shin’uchi) only did the smalltalk introduction. I don’t know if this is what’s to be expected from an afternoon session (it was full house by the way), but i’d’ve (hell yeah double penetration contraction) loved to hear one of the few rakugo stories i know. It was fun anyway, and although i was dying from the aftermath of last night’s party, i still laughed my ass off at a few jokes.

The difference in the power levels of performers was very clear. Some of the older futatsume could make me laugh hysterically in the matter of a few words, while others just seemed full of themselves that they could wear a hakama and honestly, even zenza did way better than them. There were a few female performers too, who didn’t miss an opportunity to joke about this rarity.

There were also non-rakugo performances, notably two magic trick shows, an acrobat duo, a damn lame manzai pair (i seriously can’t understand how can people find that funny) and a guy who used scissors with proficiency that reminded me of a certain girl from a certain anime. That was really amazing (i mean what the guy made out of a piece of paper just with scissors, not the anime).

Next time i’ll check out one of the theaters a bit closer. I’m commuting to Osaka for two weeks anyway.