Rakugo's Rakugo Explained

Japanese Rakugo originated from China. The famous Japanese rakugo writer Sanyuutei Genroku clearly elaborated in "Reading the Analects of Confucius of Rakugo" that: China had a performance style similar to the present monologue as early as the Han Dynasty, and most of the passages in the Edo period came from a collection of jokes called "Laughing Foo" (which may be the name of the Japanese translation) imported from China, and then it was successively affected by the literature of "The Wild History of the Palace" and "Liaozhai Zhiyi," etc., and the art of rakugo continued to flourish. .

In an interview with a reporter, Ippei Hayashiba introduced the Japanese rakugo, which began as a joke, and gradually became a regular stage show, with more than one performer and longer and longer stories. 1744, the ancestor of the rakugo, Luno Gorobei, was the first to perform a "street story" in Kyoto, which started the first Japanese rakugo, and was the first to be performed in the city. Fifty years later, the art of rakugo moved to Edo (now Tokyo), and in 1798, the first place specializing in rakugo, "Yorishiki," appeared in a Tokyo temple, and the rakugo family, Sanshotei Kagaku, began to perform in Tokyo. In 1798, the first venue specializing in the performance of rakugo was established in a temple in Tokyo, and the rakugo artist Sanshotei Koraku began to introduce rakugo to the general public at the Yoseki. The Suzuki-tei at the end of Nishikatamachi Street in Hongo, where Mr. Zhou Zuoren lived during his stay in Japan, was a "Yoroshi". He once saw a small official of the Yanagi family rise to a high seat as if he were a village tutor, and speak slowly, as in the Analects of Confucius, and the listeners could not help but laugh. The art of the drop of words in the 19th century ushered in two boom, the most prosperous had appeared 172 "send seat".

In the 20th century, Rakugo remained a popular art in Japan, but in the 1960s it began to decline with the advent of film, which Rakugo artists called their "greatest enemy. Ippei's father, Sanpei Hayashiya, borrowed the Chinese monologue and changed the form of expression of rakugo by using modern, easy-to-understand Japanese, and "yoshi" enjoyed a brief boom. In the 21st century, with the emergence of new forms of entertainment, Rakugo declined once again, and many Rakugo artists even abandoned their ancestral trades and turned to other professions. In addition to drop-phrase, the art forms of laughter include mangcai (similar to stand-up comedy) and do-laugh (similar to sketches). Nowadays, only dojinshi is still popular, and rakugo is only seen in the late-night crosstalk program of the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). Last year, "Tiger and Dragon," a drama reflecting contemporary rakugo artists starring Tomoya Nagase and Junichi Okada*** together, began airing. The two men performed a piece of rakugo in every episode, and for a while, rakugo was back in vogue. The Hayashi family says that more young people are patronizing the Oyinza Rakugo Festival this year than last year, and that the rakugo artists need to continue to use their laughter to reach a wider audience.