Mameda, a female tanuki, wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and play tricks on humans. But unfortunately, it seems that her old tricks will not work in the modern era until a lady captivates her with her comedic storytelling that deceives Mameda.
Tanukis are mysterious and mischievous creatures. Mameda decides to go to Osaka to visit the town her father lived. Instead, she went against her relative’s words of interacting with humans and playing tricks.
As expected, the humans saw through her tricks. The one I find funny is trying to buy a bunch of Dango with leaves that look like money. Yes, this sounds like the tricks Lico plays. Of course, while she is a Huli jing or a fox spirit from Chinese folklore, Mameda transforming leaves into money reminds me a bit of Lico. But, of course, she lacks cleverness as her trickery seems rather amateurish. After all, humans saw through her tricks besides Mameda being an amateur, thanks to modern developments in Japan.
However, when Mameda sees a hat fly down to her, she decides to disguise herself as a handsome man. Sadly, that lady saw it quickly, although anyone could see her disguise since a man shouldn’t have a girl’s voice.
That lady warns her to return to her village for her own good. She only reveals that she is a rakugoka, a comic storyteller. Mameda saw for herself as that lady told a rakugo. She didn’t believe that she got absorbed into the lady’s storytelling. Mameda couldn’t believe how that lady managed to trick the audience. Mameda finds out her name is Bunko.
When Mameda woke up after being spaced out, she was surrounded by townspeople who wanted to capture her. She tries to flee, but she ends up climbing a tower. Sadly, she got cornered before she jumped off, thinking she could fly. That was before she realized that only male tanukis could fly.
Well, is she screwed? Is Mameda going to die without tricking any humans successfully? Well, Bunko, who is the rakugoka, saved her butt. On a flying ship, she mentions that it’s hard to trick someone due to industrialization, cars, and electricity. Eventually, humans will take all of it and the old ways of tricking people will disappear. After all, it’s hard to deceive someone when the place is lit up. Still, she believes deep inside, humans enjoy being tricked.
Eventually, Bunko sees off Mameda as she tells her not to do anything stupid. But, of course, instead of boarding the ship, she decides to find another way to deceive humans. After realizing Bunko’s performance, Mameda believes that this might be the ticket to possibly trick people. Yep, she ends up following her, but Bunko will find out that Mameda followed her home. I wonder if Bunko will accept her offer to teach her. We’ll see next time.
This being another stand-up comedy anime there isn’t much I can say about it unless more stuff happens. It was a solid premiere. Maybe if more big stuff happens besides the routines I can try to cover it.
Same here since even sharing my thoughts on the first episode took a while, but I want to just focus on four series, although it’s a fun series. Probably will just do a mid-impressions review and final review of it.
It’s still a good show as we saw in Episode 2. Just hard to talk about weekly.
Can confirm, but yes hopefully Bunko and Mameda make a good pairing.