"Hey." "How about slowing down a little?" "I'm going to choke just watching you." "I don't know how you can cram in all of that." "My appetite is dead after all that time on a swaying train..." "This place is the middle of nowhere..." "Hold it." "I thought you'd try that." "Tell me where your parents are, already." "No way!" "I hate you, old man!" "Miss." "The bill, please." "Let the girl pay her own tab." "Serves you right." "Excuse me, young man." "Aren't you Kiku-something?" "The rakugo performer?" "I knew it!" "My husband loves rakugo so much, our shop is also an amateur theater!" "{literally "father" but I think it's the figurative use of it to mean "husband"?" "We see the guy later and he looks young...}" "He even took me to a theater in Tokyo once!" "I remember you so well!" "You were so handsome!" "And you're even more handsome up close!" "Right, Kona-chan?" "Oh?" "Kona-chan, what's wrong?" "O-O-Old man..." "Are you a rakugo performer?" "What happened to all that hostility?" "Episode 11" "Really?" "Daddy was that great back in Tokyo?" "I knew it!" "I always thought Daddy's rakugo was the funniest in Japan!" "The old man at the shop lets me hear it on the radio, but Daddy's rakugo is way funnier!" "He'll only do it for me, though." "He says I can't tell anyone." "He could make a lot more money at it, too..." "Why won't your father do rakugo?" "Mommy gets mad." "She says it's not work for honest people, and he should do normal work." "Daddy hates working, though." "So, Mommy worked instead." "But that meant drinking with men, and dancing in crazy costumes..." "It was really bad work." "And then, she left us not too long ago." "What?" "Where is she now?" "I don't know!" "She abandoned us." "That's why I'm working so that Daddy can eat!" "Old man, you walk too fast!" "Wait!" "Not a chance." "Daddy!" "Daddy, you got a visitor!" "Why are you sleeping?" "You said you'd go looking for work!" "Hey, wake up!" "Wake up!" "Wake up, Daddy!" "Sukeroku!" "Get your ass out of bed!" "How dare you waste this child's time!" "I came a long way to see you, you know!" "Quit lazing around and show your ugly mug!" "Bon!" "Bon!" "Daddy!" "You haven't changed!" "It's been a long time, Shin-san." "I don't got much, but make yourself at home." "Absolutely not." "How can you live in a place like this?" "My skin won't stop crawling." "Well, it's been this way since she left." "You came at a pretty bad time..." "She'll probably be back soon, though." "She can't have gone too far." "She's always like this, y'know." "Does what she wants, when she wants..." "Here, some tea." "No more justifications." "There's a lot I want to say to you." "But, I'll bite my tongue and just say this:" "Come back to Tokyo and do rakugo." "No way." "You know how that stuff is." "You miss one day, you gotta spend three getting back on the horse." "I haven't done it for years." "You get crummy without practice." "I'll never be able to remember it all now." "Who can even say what's right anymore?" "If I do it, I'll get complaints." "Any time I get on stage, I don't feel alive anymore." "I'm sick of it." "But if people want you, you have to do it." "That's your fate." "Who cares about them?" "I'm fed up with rakugo people." "The audiences have all forgotten, too." "I don't care." "I'm done." "I don't want to do it." "Look, remember what I told you?" "The story about Master and the Sukeroku that raised you." "Yakumo and Sukeroku seem to be deeply connected names." "I can't think of a better way to honor his memory than for a Sukeroku to become Yakumo." "Brother, please..." "It's what you always dreamed of, isn't it?" "Shut up!" "Go away, go away, go away!" "I don't wanna hear this Yakumo crap!" "Like hell I'm leaving!" "I'm staying until you come with me!" "Stop it!" "I've thrown all that away!" "Why do you still care?" "!" "Because I need your rakugo!" "I've had to listen to it ever since I was a child." "I imitated it, aspired to it, failed to do it, gave up on it..." "Sometimes I wanted what you had so much that I burned with resentment..." "Sometimes I hated it and rejected it completely." "But sometimes, I found myself loving it, too." "When things were hard for me, I wanted to hear your rakugo." "All the good, all the bad..." "Your rakugo has given me every emotion imaginable." "That's why I can't be without it." "For the sake of my rakugo." "I don't care if you're sick of it." "This isn't for the Rakugo Association or the audience..." "This is all for my sake." "What happened to you while I was gone?" "You look like a shinigami..." "Konatsu-san, we need to talk." "Come here." "I'll be staying here until you agree to come back to Tokyo." "First, we'll clean this place from top to bottom." "Konatsu-san, you're going to help, too." "Sukeroku." "Are you in debt?" "Hey now, don't just assume that stuff." "I know you think I'm—" "Are you, or not?" "I am!" "Use that to pay it all off." "You heard him." "Isn't that nice?" "Clean yourself up and go looking for work." "You're going to pay it all back." "If you won't do rakugo, then take odd jobs at the local inns to earn money." "I'll need living expenses and train fare back, too." "It would be faster with a theater, but I can make it work with dinner parties." "I'll have to go around soliciting." "I'll help, too!" "I'll work and save up money!" "Take me to Tokyo with you!" "I wanna see Daddy's rakugo in a theater!" "I see we have a common goal." "Iya Soba" "I see, sour tofu!" "You know your stuff, young man." "If it's that great, why not have more?" "No, no." "With sour tofu, you must only ever eat one." "Kiku-san, a minute?" "This is the master of the Kame-ya Inn." "This hall used to be a place for geisha to practice." "It's a bit like a small theater, isn't it?" "Well?" "Why not try doing rakugo here?" "Lately, young people have all been leaving for the big city." "There's fewer people here in town." "We don't need big machines." "If you call, they'll come from all 'round." "Getting that much of a response from people by yourself, isn't that a wonderful thing?" "Bon!" "Get yourself in here." "Stop slacking off!" "We're cleaning it anyway, so they'll never know." "The water feels great!" "Hey, you've gotten real cooperative." "In the old days, you would've tattled on me." "It's too stupid." "We won't make a single yen." "Great guess!" "You remember the day we first met?" "You cried your eyes out in the bath." "As if I'd remember that." "I'll never forget." "That was the only time I ever saw you cry." "Hey, Bon." "Why don't you complain a little now and then?" "Complain, eh?" "I thought of that as something I wasn't allowed to do." "I'm doing rakugo in tiny venues." "It's so much fun." "I never felt that way before now." "I thought if I was going to do rakugo, it was wrong to think that way." "It's because you can see the audience." "You said you were fine being alone, but you really can't do rakugo by yourself." "When the audience really wants you, there's just the right amount— not too many, and not too few— you can properly see each other, give them your best performance you have, and have a proper, emotional back-and-forth." "You can't do rakugo if you can't see the audience, right?" "If you understand it that well, why won't you do it?" "Because I can't see the audience's faces." "You're up early." "It's spring." "It's best to sleep in on days like this." "Your hair's gotten pretty long." "There's no one to cut it." "A barber costs money, so forget it." "What?" "I'll cut it." "N-No thanks!" "You don't have to!" "Quit fighting me, kid." "Hey, when can we go to Tokyo?" "If you need more money, I said I'd work, too..." "Children should stay at home." "Are you looking for my mommy?" "Who told you that?" "It's a rumor in town." "They say there's a rakugo performer going around asking people." "We hear everything here in the country." "I don't know why you're trying to find Mommy, but just let her go." "Daddy's way happier without her, anyway." "What a mean thing to say." "I hate my mommy." "Why won't she let Daddy do rakugo?" "It's her fault Daddy's no good!" "She just met a man and ran off." "Who cares if she comes back?" "It's disgusting." "When I tried doing rakugo, just hearing it made her angry." "She always said I was going down the wrong path." "Like I care!" "Daddy's the only one I need." "Hey, now." "No child should speak that way about her mother." "That foul mouth will put your beauty to waste." "I'd get mad about a girl doing rakugo, too." "How come?" "It would be hard for you to understand..." "Besides, knowing women will listen is what gives the performers their motivation." "The theater is a relaxing place you can visit in just a yukata, but a lady with a properly tied obi and her hair done up right really makes the theater sparkle." "Her perfume lifts up the storytellers, and lets them perform better than ever before." "That's the power that women have." "There, all done." "Am I pretty?" "Since I'm pretty, do some rakugo!" "That's how it works, right?" "Well, I suppose you've got me there..." "Yeah!" ""Nozarashi!" Do that one!" "I-I'm not any good at that one..." "But I love the singing part!" "Fine, fine..." "Hello, there." "Thank you for coming out to this old place..." "Now, what some people call debauchery..." "Skip the intro!" "Get right to it!" "I'm remembering how it goes!" "Hey, mister!" "You in?" "Well, if it isn't my neighbor, Hachigoro." "What is it?" "Is something the matter, Hach-san?" "You better believe something's the matter, you old pervert!" "Well, I see you're feeling feisty this morning." "Hey, mister." "Where'd you get the girl you were with last night?" "Heading off to Mukojima with your fishing pole every day..." "I heard the sound of a woman's voice coming from your house, so I peeked in." "Don't try to hide it!" "If you saw, I suppose there's no point in hiding it." "I'll tell you the whole story." "Yesterday, I took my fishing pole to Mukojima as I always do, but I didn't catch a single thing." "It was getting dark, and there was no one around." "The sound of the bell from Benten Hall in Asakusa echoed with a gloomy "bwong" in my ears." "Cut it out, mister!" "Quit making it so gloomy!" "Tell it with a little more cheer, y'know?" "So, what, did you see a ghost?" "Just a single crow." "But, the time seemed wrong for a crow to be returning to its nest..." "In a fit of curiosity, I went to where the crow came from, and pushed aside the reeds with my rod." "There, I saw a fresh skull and a corpse, recently dead." "I felt sorry for a body left out in a place like that, so, I offered a few clumsy words in tribute." ""Let this grass honor the bones that will fertilize the field." "All who meet must some day part." "May you rest in peace." "Praise to Amida Buddha." "Praise to Amida Buddha."" "Then, as I poured some sake from my gourd onto the bones..." "It seemed to take on a faint blush..." "Scary..." "Um..." "A ghost?" "Spirit, whatever!" "If it's a woman, I don't care!" "So, I just need to take that fishing pole and fish up some bones, right?" "Hey, look at them go!" "I guess they're all after bones, too." "I'd better fish up some good bones of my own." "Hey, how about you?" "Fishing for a mature lady, or a young girl?" "Well?" "Anyone fishing up any good bones?" "Oh?" "I forgot it." "Um..." "Hang on, just a minute." "I'm remembering in now." "When that old bell rings, the incoming tide turns south." "There it is!" "Hey, listen to you, reciting off that gloomy old "Nozarashi!"" "This is the part where you gotta sing out!" "The crow pops out, and la dee da..." "I'll find some bones there, ta-daa..." "Hey!" "Su-chara-ka-chan!" "Su-chara-ka-chan!" "Hey, quit splashing around!" "What?" "Splashing around?" "Give me a break, does this look like splashing around to you?" "I'll show you splashing around!" "Oh, I give up." "I'll stop fishing." "Watching this idiot is more fun!" "But, the bones that went to see the old man last night were too young." "Better in her late twenties or early thirties." "Mature women know their way in the sack!" "I can hear her coming now!" "Clackity clack-clack!" "Clackity clack-clack!" "Good evening!" "Good evening!" "I came here from Mukojima!" "Oh, you're the bones?" "Took you long enough!" "You poured sake on me to honor my memory, didn't you?" "It's gotten me a bit drunk." "Well, come on up." "I'm all alone here, no need to worry!" "May I sit beside you?" "Oh, you bet!" "Come up and sit!" "Perhaps I will, then." "Look at that!" "The bones came right in!" "Then I'll sit right next to them!" "Look at that guy!" "He sat right down in a puddle!" "It's fine now, because I'm still young..." "But once I'm an old lady, you'll just abandon me, and fish up a new young girl, won't you?" "Don't talk like that!" "I've got a pretty little wife like you!" "I'll spend my whole life treating you right!" "I'm already working hard!" "Oh, listen to you talk!" "You'd better not lie to me with that mouth!" "Ow, ow, ow!" "That hurts!" "Don't pinch me!" "You simply mustn't cheat on me." "Don't worry, you can rest easy." "If you cheat on me, I'll tickle you." "Oh, no, don't tickle me!" "Well... maybe I will tickle you a little." "Oh, stop that, no, no!" "Don't tickle me!" "That hurts!" "Hey, that dummy got a hook in his own lip." "It hurts!" "It's bleeding!" "It's so stupid, this is ridiculous!" "Who needs a hook, anyway?" "Now, bring it on!" "Hey, that guy's fishing without a hook!" "And that's a little bit of comedy we call "Nozarashi."" "Daddy!" "Sukeroku-san." "I'm begging you." "Take the Yakumo name and perform rakugo." "Get up on bigger and bigger stages and make that girl happy." "Best in Japan!" "Konatsu..." "Hey, I hear they're having a rakugo show at the Kame-ya." "Yurakutei's doing it." "Sounds like there's quite a bit of interest." "The maids at our inn are really excited." "Rakugo's not even popular nowadays..." "Let me see." "That idiot husband of mine, is he still doing that crap?" "Iya Hot Springs Inn Yurakutei Pair Event Kameya Inn Kikuhiko Sukeroku" "Kikuhiko" "Kiku-san..." "You finally came..." "Next time, Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju Episode 12." "We appreciate your continued support."