Summary
Akane-Banashi challenges perceptions of the Shonen genre by placing its female protagonist in a male-dominated field, making her journey and rivalries fascinating to watch. The manga innovates by treating the stories of Rakugo as Akane’s friend, allowing her to defeat her opponents with the power of friendship. It also breaks with traditional Shonen tendencies by portraying her opponents as underdogs. The series introduces Rakugo’s different styles as unique techniques, laying the foundation for a fighting system based on real-world skills. This adds weight and adds challenge to Akane’s struggle to navigate the tension between the art form’s modern and traditional leanings.
While many fans may have a specific idea of what the Shonen genre entails, a revolution Jump Shonen manga is challenging all of these perceptions. This comic is Akane-Banashi, written by Yuki Suenaga and drawn by Takamasa Moue, is still relatively new at less than 2 years old. But in that short time, it has made a big impression on both readers and industry professionals alike, largely due to its completely fresh approach to the genre.
Akane-Banashi is the story of young girl Akane, who dreams of one day becoming a professional Rakugoka, something she saw her father fail to do when she was young. Rakugoka are storytellers who participate in the classic Japanese art of Rakugo, a performance performed by a solo artist without props. The stories told are some of the many fairy tales from ancient times commonly known to audiences. This may not sound like an appealing theme for a Shonen manga, but the series takes this very particular theme and adapts it into a Shonen story brilliantly while also revolutionizing It.
Akane is a revolutionary Shonen Jump Manga
First, before delving into the manga’s more important innovations to the Shonen genre, it’s important to mention that one obvious way it bucks the Shonen trend is by having Akane be a girl. While there have been some iconic Shonen Jump manga starring female protagonists in the past, like Promised Neverland, these series are generally few and far between. Shonen is a genre that literally targets young men as its demographic, so in some ways this makes sense. However, Akane-Banashi defies this convention, which is good because Akane is incredibly attractive and her status as a woman in a largely male-dominated field makes following her journey special interesting.
Akane herself also directly subverts many Shonen tropes in a more abstract way. For example, she treats each of the Rakugo stories she has learned as her friends, allowing her to defeat her competitors with the power of friendship in a fun twist on the generic corny trope. Nghe. But more interesting is how her relationship with her rival falls apart. At the start of the series, Akane participates in a revolutionary Rakugo tournament where she is clearly the best Rakugoka there is. This essentially subverts the general weakness that most Shonen protagonists face in these competitions, casting her rival in that role instead. This makes her rivalries much more interesting, and also makes it still satisfying for her to eventually lose to one of them in a future event, as it shows her Her defense has grown as well as Akane’s and this gives her another goal to achieve.
Akane-Banashi’s Rakugo is a revolutionary “Combat System”.
These contests are also a great opportunity to show off the different Rakugo styles each character uses. These styles are essentially equivalent to special fighting techniques or superpowers that typical fighting manga characters have, but they are based on real-world skills. For example, some rakugokas are better at sensing the mood of the crowd and others are better at the vocal aspects of their performance. These techniques are especially appealing due to their connection to the traditional Rakugo performance style. For such an ancient art form it inevitably clashes with some of the more modern approaches that various characters take to performing it.
This theme is one of the most engaging parts of the series, and one that is most supported by its real-world setting. Akane’s struggles necessarily pit her against some of the most authoritative voices in the Rakugo community, and she must learn to manage the tension between her own modern-day tendencies and tradition and culture. of the art form she is mastering. This gives each new technique she learns as she discovers her unique performance style a little extra weight that the character is lacking when learning new fighting powers in one frame. more magical scene. It also forced her to tackle some unique challenges, such as dealing with the backlash of snide comments about coding toward a senior during her performance.
Akane-Banashi proves real-world topics can be engaging
All of this makes for a real-world subject that, on the surface, seems boring but is incredibly fascinating, even to those unfamiliar with the art form in question. For those more familiar with Rakugo, it’s even more appealing, which is certainly part of the reason the series is so popular in Japan. This shows how engaging real-world settings can be. Of course, sports manga like Haikyu!! and Slam Dunk have previously shown this through the lens of sports, but Akane-Banashi proves that even an inherently less interesting subject can be made more interesting by applying a narrative framework of Shonen into it.
Akane-Banashi isn’t the only recent Shonen Jump manga to explore this type of concept. It is actually part of the growing “fighting performance manga” genre alongside series like PPPPPP and the non-Jump manga Oshi no Ko. All of these series focus on presenting performance art as a competition, with PPPPPP focusing on piano and Oshi no Ko focusing on acting and becoming an idol. However, within those two series, there are some fantasy elements to complement the performance side of things. Akane-Banashi presents her Rakugo performances in a different artistic style, but it ultimately retains the performer’s skill based in reality. Still, it’s engaging, proving that gimmicks aren’t needed to make this kind of story interesting.
Akane-Banashi will likely inspire many successors
Hopefully Akane-Banashi’s success will continue to revolutionize the Shonen genre, inspiring more creators to try their hand at this genre in the future. Even stories that focus on more typical Shonen themes like super-power battles and sports can learn a thing or two from the series about how to subvert and brilliantly adapt these Shonen allegory in new and exciting ways. Akane-Banashi doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon, which means its future seasons and chapters will likely push the boundaries of Shonen manga even further. It also has the potential to become a mainstay series for the magazine once current giants like My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen end.
Even if it doesn’t, it has left an indelible mark on the Shonen genre, hopefully inspiring new and fresher Jump Shonen future stories.
