On today’s stream: A live reaction to “Akane-banashi” Chapter 103.
Watch along today at 11 AM Eastern on Twitch and YouTube.
And read along as well: an initial script for today’s stream is below.
An audio-only version will be available as soon as possible wherever you get your podcasts.
Pre-Recording Talk
Hey, everyone. I’m Derek, my pronouns are he, him, his. This is the 63rd episode of Sunday Morning Manga.
We’ll get started in a moment, with a live action to Chapter 103 of Akane-banashi.
While I’m setting up, feel free to drop some questions in the chat. I’ll answer them in between recording and at the end of the stream.
Donate on Behalf of Kristin Thomas
Before we get started the live reaction, and I’ll repeat this information twice later in today’s episode:
It would mean a lot to me if you could donate to a GoFundMe. I’m going to quote from it:
“Our beloved friend, Kristin Thomas, has suffered an unimaginable loss with the unexpected passing of her precious 8 year old son, Duncan. As you can imagine, Kristin and her family are devastated. Please consider donating to help with the funeral / other expenses. If you are unable to help financially, please help by sharing this link, and by keeping Kristin and everyone who loved Duncan in your thoughts.”
Link is in the description. Thank you for your consideration.
Disclaimers
Onto this episode’s disclaimers…
Anti-Bigotry Disclaimer
This is an anti-bigotry space: I oppose and denounce any form of bigotry, discrimination, or intolerance, as these are threats to the safety and well-being of every single person on this planet, especially people marginalized because of their identity, and these threats run counter to what my country, the United States, claims it cares about: diversity, inclusion, and equity.
Any audience comments that express hate, prejudice, intolerance, or discrimination against any individual or group (on the basis of, but not limited to, their race, ethnicity, religion, nation of origin, gender, or sexuality) will be deleted by me from the comments section.
None of this is at all to say that I don’t have prejudices and biases, especially unknowingly having them or practicing them due to how bigotry can be ingrained in institutions. And this isn’t to say that I don’t have areas where I can improve at practicing anti-bigotry. I welcome remarks that point out how I am practicing bigotry, so that I can improve at not practicing bigotry. I am interested in using this platform to engage in work to put into practice equity, diversity, and inclusion.
(And speaking of: I’m still looking for alternate platforms to host this livestream and podcast. If you have alternatives where I can host video streams and podcasts, please message me.)
Onto the next disclaimers:
Ownership Disclaimer
Sunday Morning Manga is intended for information and entertainment purposes only. It is not endorsed by any companies mentioned, any persons mentioned, or any financial contributors mentioned.
All names, pictures, and sounds are registered trademarks and/or copyrights of their respective trademark and copyright holders.
All original content is the intellectual property of the speaker unless otherwise indicated.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any other persons mentioned in this episode.
No Paid Endorsements Disclaimer
Aside from the names of Patreon and Ko-fi contributors, other persons, businesses, organizations, or entities mentioned in this episode are not sponsors of this episode. My remarks about those persons, businesses, organizations, and entities are not paid endorsements.
Music
And I’m going to record the musical credits for the podcast earlier, as I have been behind on getting new credits recorded on recent podcasts.
Music today included the tracks:
“Los Angeles” by Muzaproduction.
“Sunshine” by lemonmusicstudio.
And “For You” by nomaBeats (Hyeon Yeong Jeon).
These tracks are royalty-free and available at Pixabay; links are in the description.
Starting the Recording
With all of this out of the way, let me cue up to record today’s livestream. I’ll read from the script, then we can get started. And as I keep recording, feel free to jump into the chat with questions, and I’ll respond to them along the way.
Okay, starting recording now.
Intro
This is Episode 63 of Sunday Morning Manga for Sunday, March 24, 2024. It is not safe for work.
Let’s get started. Welcome to Sunday Morning Manga. I am Derek S. McGrath, my pronouns are he/him/his.
Accessibility and Links
You can find a transcript and links from today’s episode at dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com.
Contributions are appreciated at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath. Purchases from my Amazon wishlist are also appreciated.
And you can email me at derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.
Livestream and Podcast Info
I livestream on Sundays at 11 AM Eastern on Twitch and YouTube, @dereksmcgrath. A podcast version is then available on a later Sunday wherever you get your podcasts. (I apologize for not finishing podcast versions yet. I hope to share bonus content as a substitute soon.) Early access to the podcast and other works in progress are available at patreon.com/dereksmcgrath.
Next Weekend: Undead Unluck Chapter 201
The next episode will be a live reaction to Undead Unluck Chapter 201. You can listen to that episode live on March 31 at 11 AM Eastern.
Today’s Live Reaction: Akane-banashi Chapter 103
Until then, today we’re doing a live reaction to Akane-banashi Chapter 103. Akane-banashi is written by Yuki Suenaga, illustrated by Takamasa Moue, with rakugo supervision by Keiki Hayashiya. The manga is translated into English by Stephen Paul, with lettering by Snir Aharon. Akane-banashi is licensed by Viz and can be read at viz.com.
Donate on Behalf of Kristin Thomas
Before we begin the live reaction, and I’ll repeat this information later in today’s episode:
It would mean a lot to me if you could donate to a GoFundMe. I’m going to quote from it:
“Our beloved friend, Kristin Thomas, has suffered an unimaginable loss with the unexpected passing of her precious 8 year old son, Duncan. As you can imagine, Kristin and her family are devastated. Please consider donating to help with the funeral / other expenses. If you are unable to help financially, please help by sharing this link, and by keeping Kristin and everyone who loved Duncan in your thoughts.”
Link is in the description. Thank you for your consideration.
Today’s Live Reaction: Akane-banashi Chapter 103
Recap
Turning to today’s manga: the last time I discussed Akane-banashi was Episode 55 on January 28, 2024, discussing Chapter 95.
To recap:
Chapter 95: While Akane gets ready to be the opening act, she learns the big star Taizen is late. We get some interiority from Taizen, as he is torn between honoring a promise to let Akane open for him, and the pressure from his teacher not to.
Chapter 96: Thanks to papa ex machina, Akane’s dad Tohru shows up to set Taizen straight and convince him to honor his promise to Akane. And Tohru accomplishes all of that without having to put pressure on Taizen: all Tohru has to do is let Taizen know that Tohru’s expulsion is not Taizen’s fault, even if Taizen has been told so, because his inability to impress audiences after his promotion led Issho not to promote Tohru or anyone else. In other words, Tohru tells Taizen he has come this far, so don’t waste the opportunity to pursue the career in rakugo that they both enjoy.
Chapter 97: Upon the arrival of Tohru and Taizen, Akane can start the opening act, with a rendition of the story of “Tanuki Dice.” But how will she make the story her own?
Chapter 98: Akane moves from just performing the story to trying to capture the faces her father made when he performed.
Chapter 99: Akane is loving the energy she is getting from the audience. She doesn’t just feel like she’s performing the story but living in its world.
(Sidebar: Let’s see how any future anime transitions from Akane in the real world to Akane in her imagination. Not to be too big a jerk too early in this discussion, but if I may participate in the sin of uplifting one work by tearing down another, Akane entering this story is more impressive than the admittedly surprising work Horikoshi has done with Izuku entering Shigaraki’s past in My Hero Academia.)
The Milestone 100th Chapter:
(Could we knock it off with making “Verse” talk? Not everything has to be in the shadow of Spider-Verse.)
In any case, Akane is getting more into the spirit, making faces, taking a new path for the story.
But she is losing track of how much time allotted to her performance before she has to turn the stage over to Taizen. Can she bring her story to a satisfying conclusion without rushing when time is running out?
Chapter 101: From the audience, Akane hears her dad sneeze–which clues her in through his lesson to wrap this story up. We’ll talk more about that moment in a bit, but it is the moment that allows Akane to come to the conclusion on her own, so that she’s not depending on her dad–but it lets her dad be the one to teach her a lesson, all without the audience realizing she is getting coached. This is her victory, her dad was just on the sidelines signaling her. And thus Akane finishes the story, bringing her dad to tears.
Chapter 102: Akane gets a bit of a lecture from her elders for almost going too long in improvising her story so much, building up tension in the story whether she will get her promotion. Now it’s time for Taizen to take the stage. However, as clarified in Chapter 96, Taizen isn’t someone to make a big splash. So why is the audience now on edge? What is different about him now? And how was it that Taizen’s teacher knew to show up, expecting trouble? We’ll find out in today’s chapter.
That takes care of summarizing previous chapters.
I’m at a Loss (in a Bittersweet Way)
I just wish I had more to say where Akane-banashi is currently in this arc.
Either the details are still in their nascent form that I don’t think I can adequately react live to what is happening in current chapters until I see how this arc wraps up…
…Or the details are overwhelming me when it comes to talking about live performances, improvisation, career advancement, and parental pressure and child-parent feels that I don’t think I could offer something cogent and clear-headed rather than meandering and getting overwhelmed by feelings.
In other words, Akane-banashi nailed it when it came to Akane’s dad intervening to help her finish her performance: I didn’t see that coming, and it is an ideal way to wrap up this part of Akane’s arc where this is all her accomplishment but her dad was able to continue to support her career by giving her just that tiniest of nudges to get her back on track.
I do not think right now I can be critical of the scene of Akane’s dad helping his daughter get back on track, because my personal feelings would prop this scene up as the best thing ever rather than pulling back and analyzing how well the chapters keep building up Akane’s performance to a frenzy before her dad’s small cough disrupts the entire performance to get her to focus again. I’m struggling to talk about this without being consumed with feelings, so, the best I can say is that this conclusion to this part of Akane’s arc is nearly perfect.
As I said, I wish I had more to say about where Akane-banashi is currently in this arc. I’m at a loss–in a bittersweet way: something feels missing here, but it’s missing in the way that something hurts, how this arc has handled Akane and Tohru’s parent-child teacher-student dynamic. Akane succeeded in this performance on her own–but she had her dad there to help her–but her dad didn’t do it for you. It’s a lot to work out. Maybe it’s been too soon for me to go back to talking about Akane-banashi and I should have waited for this arc to end. If things were more ideal, I wouldn’t be covering it again so soon–I would have waited until this arc was done to jump in again with a live reaction.
But there are two things getting in the way.
First, I have plans for what I’m covering next month: Golden Week will likely mean no new chapters for me to discuss, so instead I’m going to talk about new anime premieres and some manga I haven’t covered here yet. But until I can get to those anime and manga, that means these episodes of Sunday Morning Manga are returning to familiar manga series I already talked about recently, and I’m not sure I have anything new to say about them, which I regret.
So, that’s the first thing getting in the way.
The second thing getting in the way: I’ve been limiting myself with what I cover each weekend, and I’m running out of series I want to talk about. There are some series I either flat-out don’t want to talk about in any episode ever again. And then there are some series where it is indeed really too soon to get back to them.
(For example: I really don’t want to talk about that ending to Spy x Family Chapter 96 until we see whether Damian is really now going to learn Anya’s secret, which would be an unexpected, bothersome, but not entirely unwanted game-changer to the story, or whether Damian is going to misinterpret the whole thing, which means this is a cliffhanger just to troll the audience, which I’m not here for. This also means don’t expect a live reaction to Chapter 97 of Spy x Family any time soon–but thank you to people who are checking out my episodes on that manga, as those episodes tend to get higher views.)
So, if I don’t want to talk about how well Akane-banashi handled Akane and her dad, then what is there for me to talk about?
Fortunately, the manga is now beginning Taizen’s performance, so that’s a fresh start to jump into today’s chapter. The previous chapter ended with Taizen about to start his performance–before others noticed that something was different in Taizen’s demeanor. Is this an indication that what Akane’s dad said to him has changed him? Is this something Taizen already had in mind once he knew Akane was his opener, and as he did with his daughter, Akane’s dad just gave that tiniest of pushes to get Taizen back on track to follow through on what he was already planning? In other words, is this chapter going to reveal that Taizen was always going to do something unexpected and just needed Akane’s dad to confirm that is the right choice, or, as Chocho seems to think, is Taizen making a spur-of-the-moment decision to change how he does today’s performance?
The previous chapter also had another cliffhanger, with Taizen’s teacher Zensho rushing to the auditorium because he realizes Taizen is about to do something unexpected in his performance. I have not been paying close attention to Taizen and his teacher Zensho throughout this series, so I am likely missing foreshadowing that already tells us what Taizen is going to do and how Zensho realized it was going to happen.
So, what is Taizen going to do? Let’s find out.
Today’s Live Reaction: Chapter 103
Let’s begin today’s live reaction to Chapter 103 of Akane-banashi. The series is written by Yuki Suenaga, illustrated by Takamasa Moue, with rakugo supervision by Keiki Hayashiya. The manga is translated into English by Stephen Paul, with lettering by Snir Aharon. Akane-banashi is licensed by Viz and can be read at viz.com.
[TRANSCRIPT TO BE INCLUDED HERE]
Wrapping Up
I’ll wrap up there. Thank you for listening to another episode of Sunday Morning Manga.
Did you see it coming that Taizen would go in this direction with his performance? Was it foreshadowed earlier and I just wasn’t noticing it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section, or email me, derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.
Donate on Behalf of Kristin Thomas
Before we end today’s episode, I again ask that you donate to a GoFundMe. Quoting from the GoFundMe:
“Our beloved friend, Kristin Thomas, has suffered an unimaginable loss with the unexpected passing of her precious 8 year old son, Duncan. As you can imagine, Kristin and her family are devastated. Please consider donating to help with the funeral / other expenses. If you are unable to help financially, please help by sharing this link, and by keeping Kristin and everyone who loved Duncan in your thoughts.”
Link is in the description. Thank you for your consideration.
Next Time
That’s all for this weekend. Next time, a live reaction to Undead Unluck Chapter 201.
Schedule updates will be posted at youtube.com/dereksmcgrath.
Until next time, as I say each week:
If you can register to vote, check your voter registration at vote.org, campaign for Democrats at postcardstovoters.org, vote for Democrats…
And stay safe out there, people: make sure to mask up, get vaccinated, install adblockers, prevent artificial intelligence from stealing your work, register to vote, campaign against fascism and against war and against ethnic cleansing and against genocide and against terrorism, and learn and practice anti-bigotry. I’ve been Derek S. McGrath. You have a good afternoon. Bye.
Links from Today’s Episode
Donate on behalf of Kristin Thomas
My Links
Series Discussed
Vote and Campaign for Democrats
Music
“Los Angeles” by Muzaproduction
Derek S. McGrath 