Akane-banashi
Akane-banashi is a Japanese manga series written by Yuki Suenaga and illustrated by Takamasa Moue. It follows teenager Akane Osaki as she aims to reach the highest rank in, partly to avenge her father, who was expelled from the profession six years earlier. The in the series is supervised by professional Kikuhiko Hayashiya. Akane-banashi has been serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump since February 2022, with the chapters collected into 20 volumes as of January 2026. Viz Media has licensed the series for English release in North America. An anime television series adaptation produced by Zexcs is set to premiere in April 2026.
Akane-banashi has received a positive reception from reviewers and has been nominated for various awards.
Plot
Growing up, Akane admired her father and his, a traditional Japanese form of storytelling where a lone performer, called a, depicts a long, complicated, and usually funny story involving multiple characters, who are distinguished by changes in pitch, tone, slight turns of the head, and hand movements, all while sitting in place. But when she was in elementary school, her father and all the other applicants were expelled from the Arakawa School during the promotional test to obtain s third and highest rank of. Six years later, Akane, who had been secretly receiving lessons from her father's former master, sets out to become a of the Arakawa School to avenge her father and prove is a legitimate profession.Characters
Osaki family
;Akane Osaki / Akane Arakawa;Tohru Osaki / Shinta Arakawa
Arakawa School
Arakawa masters
;Issho Arakawa;Shiguma Arakawa
;Ikken Arakawa
;Zensho Arakawa
;Taizen Arakawa
;Maikeru Arakawa
;Shiguma Arakawa
Arakawa students
;Guriko Arakawa;Kyoji Arakawa
;Koguma Arakawa
;Kaisei Arakawa
;Hikaru Arakawa
;Kaichi Arakawa
;Taison Arakawa
Other schools
Kashiwaya
;Miroku Kashiwaya;Rokuro Kashiwaya
Sanmeitei
;Karashi SanmeiteiRansaika
;Urara RansaikaKonjakutei
;Chocho Konjakutei;Asagao Konjakutei
Tsubakiya
;Hassho Tsubakiya;Shomei Tsubakiya
Konjakuan
;Rien KonjakuanOther ''rakugo''-related people
;Gakumon Saito;Kimihisa Kashio
Production
Author Yuki Suenaga stated that Akane-banashi originated with Akane, a character he created but did not know what to do with. A fan of and, he was interested in, but felt it was too difficult to get into. Suspecting there were many people who felt the same way, and that it would be unexpected of the character, he decided to have Akane perform. Suenaga stated that because he is new to, he is able to predict the things readers might not know, and can depict them in the manga in a way they will understand. The in the manga is supervised by professional Kikuhiko Hayashiya. Hayashiya had first worked for Shueisha by writing columns analyzing the seen in One Piece for One Piece Magazine after they had seen his Tweets doing the same. Around November 2020, he was approached by the publisher about supervising a new manga. Thanks to help from Hayashiya, Suenaga interviewed more than 20, including Momoka Chokaroh and Miyaji Katsura. The serialization of Akane-banashi was proposed in the fall of 2021.Artist Takamasa Moue said when he first heard about the series he found it interesting, but worried whether readers of Weekly Shōnen Jump would be interested in. Realizing it was his job to make them interested, he said he tried to get readers emotionally invested in the characters, and to broaden the scope to appeal to those unfamiliar with. Having previously only had a passing interest in, Moue said he had fun researching it for Akane-banashi. To draw the scenes in the manga, Moue listens to a performance of the relevant story and thinks about how to convey the speed and intonation.
Gendai Business columnist Kenichiro Horii wrote that Akane-banashis Arakawa School is clearly modeled after the real-life Tatekawa School of, whose master, Danshi Tatekawa VII, expelled a group of in 2002, after feeling that they were not showing enough effort to reach. Although Kazuhiro Ito of Good Life with Books also noted the similarities, he reported that Suenaga stated Issho Arakawa was instead modeled after. Horii also pointed out that the Rakugo Cafe seen in the series is modeled after a real café with a similar name in Jinbōchō, Tokyo. According to Hayashiya, the Yasaka-tei and Edobashi-tei theaters in the manga were modeled after in Shinjuku and the Oedo Nihonbashi-tei in Nihonbashi, respectively. For the colored title page of chapter 29, Moue was inspired by The Breakfast Club. The Shikisai Festival seen in the manga was modeled after the Rakugo Association's Sharakusai Festival. The story "Giboshi" that is depicted in chapter 87 is a little-known story that was revived by. Suenaga stated that he received permission to use it in Akane-banashi.
Media
Manga
Written by Yuki Suenaga and illustrated by Takamasa Moue, Akane-banashi began serialization in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump on February 14, 2022. The in the series is supervised by professional Kikuhiko Hayashiya. Publisher Shueisha is collecting the individual chapters into volumes, with the first released on June 3, 2022.Both Shueisha and Viz Media began releasing the series in English digitally the same day it began in Japan, the former on its Manga Plus website and application. Viz began publishing Akane-banashi in print in summer 2023.
Volumes
Chapters not yet in ''tankōbon'' format
These chapters have yet to be published in a volume. They were serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump.Anime
An anime television series adaptation was announced on August 4, 2025. It will be produced by Zexcs and directed by Ayumu Watanabe, with series composition by, characters designed by Kii Tanaka, who will also serve as chief animation director, and music composed by. The series is set to premiere in April 2026 on the IMAnimation programming block on TV Asahi and its affiliates, as well as.Other media
The first chapter of Akane-banashi received a motion comic adaptation, where voice actors, music and sound effects are heard as the manga images appear on screen. It was uploaded to Jump Comics' official YouTube channel in two parts on June 4 and 5, 2022. Akane and her father are voiced by Akane and Kappei Yamaguchi. In addition to being actual daughter and father, the Yamaguchis are also both learned to perform rakugo, but are not an actual professional.Reception
By September 2022, the collected volumes of Akane-banashi had over 200,000 copies in circulation and volume one had been reprinted four times. With the release of volume 13 in September 2024, the manga had 2 million copies in circulation; with the release of volume 20 in January 2026, the manga is set to have over 3 million copies in circulation.The series has been recommended by Eiichiro Oda and Hideaki Anno. It was nominated for the 2022 Next Manga Award in the print manga category and ranked third out of 50 nominees. The series ranked fourth in the 2023 edition of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga for male readers. It ranked third in the Nationwide Bookstore Employees Recommended Comics of 2023. Akane-banashi ranked second in the 16th Manga Taishō, losing to Draw This, Then Die! by two points. It was also nominated for the 47th Kodansha Manga Award in the category in 2023. The New York Public Library included Akane-banashi on its 2023 list of the Best Books for Teens. Anime News Network's Richard Eisenbeis chose it as the Best New Manga of 2023, while Brigid Alverson of School Library Journal included it as one of the Top 10 Manga of 2023. The Young Adult Library Services Association included the first volume of Akane-banashi on its 2024 list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens. In 2024, Stephen Paul's English translation of the series for Viz Media was nominated for Best Translation at the inaugural American Manga Awards, which is co-organized by Anime NYC and Japan Society.
Steven Blackburn of Screen Rant praised the first chapter of Akane-banashi. He wrote that the sudden shift in protagonists from Shinta, "a stereotypical hero who embodies everything that makes a successful ", to Akane, an unconventional hero who is essentially a, already makes the latter character compelling. "That's a difficult dynamic to achieve, but Akane-banashi has somehow succeeded before it's even begun". In a review for Multiversity Comics, Zach Wilkerson gave the "immensely charming and well crafted" first chapter an 8.5 rating, with particular praise for Moue's art. Robbie Pleasant of the same website strongly praised the series and its art for successfully conveying how a performer's demeanor and voice changes as they perform different characters, despite manga being a static and soundless medium.
In May 2022, Kota Mukaihara of Real Sound wrote that Akane-banashi was poised to be a breakout hit. He felt that although Akane's progress in seemed to be going unusually fast and smooth, with her not yet being confronted by a tough challenge or failing at something, this allows readers to follow her growth without unnecessary stress. Mukaihara speculated that, while this could simply be because the manga was still new and needed to develop quickly in order to gain momentum, it emphasizes Akane's cleverness and the depth of her determination and is a testament to the charm of the characters and the skill with which the story is written. He also wrote that while Akane's outgoing personality and unprecedented skill make her seem like a maverick, her positivity and down-to-earth nature make her a likable character. Blackburn's colleague Ben Sockol praised later chapters of the series for "subverting the classic tournament arc trope", writing that Akane-banashi feels fresh and different from anything else in Weekly Shōnen Jump and is one of the most exciting manga currently running in the magazine as of June 2022.