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.