‘Akane-banashi’ series review: Jubilant rakugo revival is a sleeper shonen hit

For the better part of the last century, Tokyo has industrialised almost every corner of Japanese cultural life without entirely surrendering the older rituals that made the city worth mythologising in the first place. This explains why we can leave the neon sprawl of Shinjuku crossing, walk barely fifteen minutes through a forest of convenience stores, karaoke parlours and office towers, and arrive at Suehiro-tei, one of the country’s oldest surviving yose theatres, where a lone storyteller still commands an audience armed with nothing beyond a folding fan, a hand towel and enough vocal dexterity to persuade several hundred strangers that they are watching an entire cast instead of a single performer seated permanently on a cushion.