#sgrs meta

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

You know I just can’t stop thinking about Kikuhiko /Yakumo being able to perhaps most likely live a lot longer if it wasn’t for him holding onto all that burden. I feel that the fact that for over years and decades that he’s been holding onto so much very deep ridden-guilt, grief, pain, also shame and blame for being unable to save the two people he cared about the most...but mainly when it comes to him being unable to save Sukeroku. The one person who he had the most strongest connection with but also the most stronger bond with as well as the one person who was able to see him at his most vulnerable for the first time ever seeing him cry at the bath house as children. But also the one person who Yakumo really, truly loved with all his heart. Not to say that he didn’t loved or cared about Miyokichi at all, but its pretty real clear and also not that subtle most of the time were its obvious that Yakumo is / was deeply in love with Sukeroku but most likely knew that he had to keep those feelings heavily repressed due to both the time eras, culture, the rakugo community, & etc. Him being unable to save the person he loved the most & holding a lot of all that guilt also brokenness inside is what most likely did him in in the end. Like while I was happy that Yakumo was finally able to be at peace for going through so much and him being able to happily pass on,  I can’t help but think of that slight possibility of him being able to live a longer life all the way up to his 90s or even all the way towards his 100ths up there with matsuda!  If it wasn’t for both his beat down mentality or the fact he was actually trying to slowly kill himself with rakugo & what he been dealing with for so many years internally probably did a major number on his health altogether. IDK I can’t help but think of if Yakumo wasn’t so messed up inside he could’ve likely been the most oldest, legendary, longest living rakugo performer within modern times & would’ve been able to see rakugo thrive within the present future.         

[klkuhiko]

tbh as a sgrs fan the only thing more disheartening than the shinnosuke reveal is the sheer number of people who are denying it rn. i understand feeling cheated, feeling viscerally repulsed by it (i’d been suspecting the reveal, but the confirmation hit me like a sack of bricks too) but i’m baffled @ everyone’s careless dismissal - saying it couldn’t have happened, that kiku’s character doesn’t leave room for such an act, or even worse - claiming that it doesn’t make sense for the story, when in fact this literally rakugo’s theme/thesis taken to its most extreme and formulaic end. kiku being shinnosuke’s father speaks more to kiku and sukeroku’s relationship, and their treatment of women, than it does anything else

kumota haruko (the mangaka) prefaces the bonus chapter by emphasizing how critical - critical - this chapter is in understanding rakugo, and that it is the audience’s job to take a discerning eye to what is being implied. in the chapter the yakuza boss, oyabun, tells kiku that konatsu is off-limits for someone like him, out of respect for kiku as an great artist and a friend; we see kiku confront sukeroku, revealing that konatsu was wildly in love with him, he tells sukeroku that when konatsu gets older, he plans on approaching her not as “sukeroku’s child, but as another human being”. many years later, kiku thanks oyabun, who has agreed to posture as shinnosuke’s father for kiku’s sake, for doing him a favor he could never repay. shinnosuke shares kikuhiko’s physical likeness, his rakugo is telling (close readers understand how important the rakugo is in conveying hidden meaning when dialogue elects to be ambiguous), kiku’s frantic lament to sukeroku about “what he did to his daughter”, that both sukeroku and kikuhiko’s children appear with them in heaven... knowing that there are people plugging their ears, pounding sand in denial, speaks to me of someone who is desperately invested in preserving the integrity of a hyperidealized male character (”b-b-but [x] would never do that, he is [such a good guy/my friend/a genius!!]”) than they are interrogating and thinking critically about what this means in context of sgrs’ message and cultural narrative. 

sgrs’ tragedy is muted and understated, its deeply woven into the fabric of the apologue structure, one that labors the oppressive dominion of generational pedigree, and the power of lineage - the yakumo name stays inside the family, the 7th generation took the name from his father, and outsiders (like sukeroku, or women) are essentially helpless. there’s tragedy in kiku and sukeroku’s romantic relationship - shinnosuke is kiku’s and sukeroku’s lovechild, yes, their love borne through rakugo, but he comes at the exploitation of two women, miyokichi and konatsu, i.e “society’s so homophobic that women have to be used as mediators/incubators to consummate this everlasting love between these two men.” say what you want about the message - kumota certainly could have explored more novel ways to say the same thing, imo, but it’s not surprising, and is exactly what this show has been trying to say all along

idk there is something very dangerous in framing unhealthy power imbalances or traumatic sexual relationships as “unthinkable” and “preposterous” - tbh this feeds into to the standard narrative that keeps victims of these relationships silent because their experiences are so heavily “other-ed”, whereby the perpetrators are often family members, well-liked men (gay and straight), prolific men, sympathetic men who are otherwise humanized. someone like kiku. it’s just really transparent that in this totally fictional instance, ppl’s immediate gut reaction is to deny (as always) rather than examine

[eidolon-azii]

So, I just saw a post about how we’re all upset about the reveal of Shinnouske’s biological father because it’s touched a Western taboo and our feeble Western morality can’t handle it. 

And yes, guys, it’s canon. I don’t think that’s up for debate after episode 12. 

I want to add my two cents here, for whatever it’s worth...

(Spoilers under the cut)

My problem with Kiku being Shinnouske’s father isn’t so much that it’s a taboo, but rather that it’s out of character. I want to enumerate all the ways in which I believe so:

(1) Kiku has been a man driven by obligation and duty throughout his career. Period. He gave up Miyokichi for his Master. He never indulged the sorts of drinking and womanizing that used to get Shin in trouble with the Master and the Association. He did rakugo that was appropriate to his rank and never talked back to his elders. Not once did he step out of line, even at great sacrifice to himself. He cut off everything that he loved -- Miyokichi, Shin, family, companionship -- for the sake of rakugo. It’s no wonder he would want to kill rakugo and take it with him when he died.

(2) When he took Yota on as an apprentice, he said that Yota should never do anything that would bring dishonor upon his Master. Surely, surely, engaging in a sexual relationship and impregnating one’s foster daughter would bring dishonor upon a Master. I can’t imagine Kiku being such a hypocrite, being a dishonorable apprentice who is asking his own apprentice to be honorable. 

(3) His relationship with Konatsu is so fucking fraught man. If he were to sleep with her in that situation, it would seem like a hate fuck, and yes, that’s hot for fanfics, but it doesn’t seem like something that’s in his character. Sure, Konatsu later tells Sensei that her feelings for Yakumo might have approximated romantic love, but while he was alive, they were quite antagonistic towards one another. I mean, people who hate each other can very well have sex (MikoRei!), but there isn’t any sexual tension here. There’s no history of a twisted romantic relationship, or a fucked-up attraction. If anything, the only history that’s presented is a resentful daughter towards a reluctant and ill-equipped father-figure. If we were supposed to believe that they’d shared anything more than a familial connection, some narrative depth might have been nice. Given that this series does everything with narrative depth, I am having a hard time with this aspect of the Kiku-Konatsu relationship. It’s so... flimsy. 

(4) It’s hard to believe that he would get over his guilt. He truly believes he is partly to blame for the deaths of Miyokichi and Sukeroku. I have a hard time believing he would add to his guilt by sleeping with their daughter. 

(5) Honestly, while we do get a sense that Konatsu had her reasons for wanting to have a child with Kiku, what were Kiku’s reasons for engaging in a sexual relationship with his lover’s daughter? With his best friend’s daughter? We are never given his reasons. Now, don’t get me wrong. Most of the time people don’t need reasons to have sex, but Kiku has spent his whole fucking life doing things with exceeding deliberation, doing what’s expected of him instead of what he wants -- I’m not so sure he was just caught up in some moment of desire. It doesn’t seem like him. 

(6) Kiku hasn’t shown much interest in sex at all throughout the show -- even with Miyokichi -- and all of the sudden he’s fathered a child? He was uncomfortable when Shin wanted to go to the geisha quarter, both in life and the afterlife. His romantic interactions with Miyokichi were strained and difficult; she said so herself. I’m having trouble with this, especially on the register of representation. Is there a need to sexualize him? I’m not sure...

So, like, that’s my take. I just don’t see him sleeping with Konatsu, especially since he’s so devoted to duty. He took the blame for her parents’ deaths so that she wouldn’t blame herself! It is exceedingly difficult for me to believe thereafter that he would do something even inadvertently predatory like sleeping with his ward. Yes, y’all, sleeping with someone with those sorts of fucked up authority relations is something we ought to consider. And yes y’all, it’s predatory. And when has Kiku ever been predatory or even salacious in that manner? That’s why I’m not okay with the big reveal. I get it; it’s poetic to have Bon’s bloodline still extant, but remember that rakugo doesn’t necessarily thrive along bloodlines. Masters don’t always apprentice their sons, so again, I’m not sure it was necessary. 

At any rate, this anime slays everything in the game even with this reveal, so I’m not too upset. I just don’t want people to think that my issues have to do with taboo or Western discomfort. 

[l00nyarchive]

if you hate miyokichi, you don’t understand this show.

(to be upfront about certain things: i don’t think ‘she didn’t do anything wrong’. nor do i think she and sukeroku, or she and kiku, were ever actually in love so. lets start with that.)

in the context of the show, there are three overlapping factors affecting the lives of our main trio here: homophobia, gender, and class. if kiku is affected by homophobic and sexist gender norms (’a boy can’t be a geisha!’) and sukeroku is affected by homophobic and classist norms, miyokichi is affected by sexist and classist norms, and the specificities of her situation end up making her far more vulnerable in her life than either sukeroku or kiku is.

she has been forced into sex work for the entirety of her life. first she attempts to have kiku marry her, because he is of an elevated class and will literally bring her out of poverty and free her from needing sex work and bring stability to her life. it’s not a love match, it’s literally survival for miyokichi. if kiku understands any of this–and i think he does–he ultimately chooses not to care. left with little other options, miyokichi turns to sukeroku. both of them clearly are thinking of kiku when they’re with each other, but they both know that–miyo obviously recognizes the homoerotic nature of sukeroku and kiku’s relationship (how many times has she tried to force her way between them/claimed sukeroku ‘steals’ kiku from her? it’s not even subtle, folks). but again, it’s something. if she can get sukeroku out of the city, she thinks, away from rakugo, he will get a job and support her and maybe she can escape sex work and poverty with him.

is it likely? no. does miyo manipulate sukeroku with her pregnancy? absolutely. is miyokich the only one at fault here? absolutely not. sgrs is a dramatic tragedy…all of the characters have faults and make serious, painful mistakes. that’s the show.

anyway, sukeroku turns out to be a complete fucking bum and does nothing but drink all day, and miyokichi is forced back into sex work again. she abandons him and her daughter and while in many ways that is a reprehensible choice, is it also an understandable one? yes, in my opinion.

rather than hate miyokichi, it is far more interesting to try and understand her, to recognize that her situation was stacked against her in every single way and that she did what she thought she had to do to survive. no, she is not perfect. but kiku has spent the entire time he has raised konatsu denying her the one thing she wants because she is a girl, deliberately making her miserable, making her suffer, because he wants someone to suffer the way that he suffered, to be unhappy as he is unhappy. yet kiku is the fandom’s beloved fave despite this.

why can’t miyokichi ever get the same understanding?

(NEWEST EP SPOILERS///) yes, she killed sukeroku. that is the tragedy that this entire show is built upon. maybe not everyone is willing to try and understand miyokichi in this moment. but that tragedy stems from her own tragedy, the one that she has struggled with her entire life, the one where no one wanted to empathize with her or reach out to her and understand her and maybe help her instead of manipulating and using her.

[sgrs-meta]

Welcome to the Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu meta blog!

On this blog the aim is to reblog every bit of SGRS-related meta, so that we have it all in one place and can bring more awareness to people’s ideas and thoughts about the show.

If you’ve written any meta (whether it’s character studies, plot speculations, stuff about the directing and use of colours or just some insight into anything SGRS), we want to see it! Please feel free to link us to any meta you’ve seen or posted and we will reblog it. (you can also tag your posts as #sgrs meta)

As this is for meta, we will reblogging ANY that we see - whether the owner of the blog agrees with it or not. This does however mean that we won’t be reblogging fanarts or fanfiction, unless some meta is related to it.

For now, all the meta that we’ve found has been reblogged. If you have any suggestions for tags or anything of the like, let us know!

Have fun!

[eidolon-azii]

It sad though to let sukeroku being the victim between miyokichi amd kiku while konatsu take all the impact. At the end all of them become the victim

So, I know Matsuda-san said that they were all victims. And to some extent I agree. But even within the rubric of victimhood, people have agency. That is to say, some of them are more to blame for how things happened than others.

Now, as I said before, I don’t hate Miyokichi because she’s ruining my gay ship. I actually don’t hate her. But I don’t know that I agree she’s blameless here. I mean, she stabbed Sukeroku. And I get that the events leading up to that fateful encounter were all precipitated by the harsh societal conditions women had to face. Miyokichi didn’t have many options. She was a sex worker and dependent upon the men in her life to support her. Sukeroku was terrible at supporting her, even though he knew that she absolutely needed that security and stability to stay around. So, I understand her frustrations with him. I do. I would be angry too.

But there were plenty of places in her story where she made decisions that I find morally questionable. One of the most uncomfortable scenes in S1 happens when she leans in to kiss Kikuhiko. You can see that he’s only sort of into it, if at all. It was clear all along that he didn’t reciprocate her feelings, not with the same intensity. It’s okay to love someone with ferocity. It’s not okay to foist your feelings upon them and then get angry at them for not feeling the same way. People don’t owe you love just because you love them. That sense of entitlement to Kiku’s sentiment and his person runs throughout the entire story, such that what happened that night was a manifestation of said entitlement. She felt like Kiku belonged to her and so she sought to get rid of the person who stood between them (in her mind).

Kiku, too, isn’t blameless. I think he did lead her on, and that’s not right either. But when he broke up with her, he did so with clarity. There were no equivocations. 

I think Kiku may not distinguish between types of love, only intensity. That is, I think he doesn’t compartmentalize between romantic or platonic or familial love. For him, it seems like there are people he loves, more or less. So, yes, I think he loved her, but probably not in the romantic and/or sexual way. In fact, he may be on the aro/ace spectrum. I think he loved Sukeroku, too, and he loved him more than Miyokichi. And perhaps it’s this latter revelation that drives Miyokichi to such extreme measures. I mean, she loses it when he says he wants the three of them to live together. For him, that’s not a problem. For her, it is, because she’s claimed ownership over Kiku and can’t bear to share him. 

I think Sukeroku wasn’t blameless as well. After Miyokichi and Kiku broke up, he responds to her advances. He knows that Kiku loves her, that she is using him to hurt Kiku, and he still gives her the time of day. That is problematic on a number of levels.

For me, I disagree with Matsuda-san in that everyone was to blame and everyone was also a victim. You don’t have to be one or the other.

The only person I thought was relatively blameless in the whole situation was Konatsu. She was a child. She thought her beloved father had died. She didn’t know Miyokichi would fall off the balcony.

But, it’s funny. I called Kiku selfish in an earlier meta I wrote because I thought he wasn’t able to give Konatsu the warmth and kindness she needed immediately after her parents died. I thought he was wrapped up in his own grief. I still think he was wrapped up in his own grief, but I think part of their relationship is fraught with the fact that the only two people he’d ever loved were taken away by the actions of this little girl that had no idea of the gravity of what she’d done. I don’t think he’d ever blame her intentionally, but I do think we tend to levy blame subconsciously in those situations. I mean, think about how you’d feel if a child precipitated the death of the most important person in your life. Logically, you’d know that the child wasn’t to blame (if it was an accident), but there’s a part of you that would be a bit angry, I’m sure. 

And thinking about the layers of meaning this adds to the fact that Konatsu has been telling Kiku that she’s going to kill him for years. Oh God, the irony there. Sure, she didn’t intentionally kill them; but she killed them all the same. 

God, this show is so good. It’s just so, so, so good. So many resonances with just a few words. 

Finally, Matsuda-san *still* needs a raise. 

[eidolon-azii]

Gotta to talk about sgrs. Konatsu child is soo cute, I think im gonna die. He reminded me of child innocent ciel though, and the part kiku embrace him is soo sweet

I both love and hate how much this little kid has Kiku wrapped around his finger. Like, he calls him ‘grandpa.’ And then, when Higuchi wanted to talk to Kiku and Kiku hesitated, he only gave in because Shinousuke said, “Grandpa, he picked me up the whole time.” I love that he fell asleep against Kiku too. 

This kid is completely unafraid of Kiku. He has no problem approaching him or touching him or talking to him. In this way, he’s the only person apart from Konatsu (at times), who doesn’t give a goddamn about Kiku being the great Yakumo. 

I love that we see so many of Kiku’s softer aspects when Shin-chan is around, too. But I hate that he was so unable to be this mindful, warm(er) (because he’s never completely warm) person to Konatsu, who needed him to be that so badly. I hate that his grief was so overwhelming that he neglected to be the guardian that she needed at the time. So, it hurts me that he’s able to be indulgent and kind, but that he wasn’t when the situation required it of him. But that’s Kiku. He’s a bit selfish, as we know. And the fact that we don’t all hate him unequivocally is a testament to the author’s ability to create complicated, fascinating, and oh so human characters. 

Also, Matsuda-san needs a fucking raise. That man is a saint. 

[eidolon-azii]

On my rewatch of SGRS, I maintain my earlier position. Kiku doesn’t discriminate among kinds of love - to him, romantic, platonic, familial love are all just love. He only discriminates in terms of intensity. He can love someone more or less, but I honestly don’t think he categorizes them as “lover” or “master” or “friend.” 

I think that’s Miyokichi’s biggest problem with him. She isn’t set aside as “lover” and therefore more beloved than Shin.