The last few months have kept me pretty busy and away from the blog, but I did manage to sneak out to a TRPG Rakugo performance by Sanyutei Rakuten. There’s a lot to unpack in that statement, so let’s start with Sanyutei Rakuten, a Rakugoka (rakugo performer) who performs both traditional and TRPG rakugo. You’re probably already familiar with TRPGs if you’re reading this, which leaves rakugo. Rakugo is a traditional spoken entertainment where a single performer sits and tells humorous stories, performing all characters and only using a fan and cloth as props. Putting that together, TRPG rakugo is rakugo about TRPGs that Sanyutei Rakuten created by adapting traditional stories to reference TRPGs.
I previously saw him perform at the Fall Tokyo Game Market, and had wanted to see another performance. I finally got that chance and attended a comparison of traditional and TRPG rakugo stories where Sanyutei Rakuten performed both versions back to back. In his words, the versions are “mostly the same”, yet it was interesting to see how small changes affected the dynamic of the story.
The first comparison was between 初ダンジョン (“First Dungeon”) and 初天神 (“First Visit to Tenjin Shrine”). Both deal with a father wanting to go out, but he ends up taking his kid, who asks for different things, with him. In the former, it’s to the dungeon, and the latter, a festival. I want to avoid spoiling “First Dungeon”, but there’s an English rendition of the traditional version by a different rakugo performer Kimochi on Youtube.
The second comparison was between インスマウス長屋 (“Innsmouth Tenement”) and 粗忽長屋 (“Careless Tenement”). The tenement house in Edo is replaced by a row house in Innsmouth, Massachusetts and references to Cthulhu abound. “Innsmouth Tenement is actually one of the three performances in Sanyutei Rakuten’s book, and according to it, the first TRPG rakugo he created.
Following the performances was a talk show with the host Gurasan and Sanyutei Rakuten discussing a variety of topics. One topic that stood out to me was the similarities between GMing and rakugo performance. Both require you to play multiple roles at the same time.
They also created a rakugo performer character loosely based on Sanyutei Rakuten himself. The character name was a Sanryuutei Rokuten (三竜亭六点), replacing the character play (遊) with dragon (竜) and changing Rakuten (楽天) to Rokuten (六点, six points). It was entertaining hearing him explain his choices.
Finally, there was a book signing and I picked up a few goodies: a die, acrylic figure, and tenugui (small towel). The die came with a single page printout for randomly generating a Rakugo performer character.
Book
Mentioned above, Sanyutei Rakuten has a book published by Group SNE that is a fun read (and listen)! It comes with a CD containing three TRPG rakugo performances, including Innsmouth Tenement. Of the three stories, my favorite is 積みゲー幽霊 (Ghost of Unplayed Games), which just thinking about as I write this makes me chuckle. The setup is a man died and comes back as a ghost after collecting a bunch of games that he never had a chance to play.
In addition to the recordings, transcripts with annotations explaining each story from both a TRPG and Rakugo perspective are included (~60 pages). I found the introduction to rakugo helpful (~20 pages), and the latter articles (~74 pages) interesting. The articles are a mix of essays about himself, rakugo, and how TRPG rakugo came to be, as well as TRPG articles collected from GM Warlock (GMウォーロック) magazine. I’m still reading the articles, but really enjoy the book, and recommend it to anyone interested and proficient in Japanese.
[Update 2024-10-22] In addition to the physical edition, there’s now also a digital edition of the book and downloadable audio files!
Youtube Channel
In addition to performances and his book, Sanyutei Rakuten is also a prolific Youtuber with lots of interesting videos that vary between game info and streaming video games. Older videos also included some cooking videos, but he has since focused on games. I particularly enjoyed the video below about him reminiscing about the heyday of TRPGs growing up.
More information can be found on his official site and X.