Tiger and Dragon

Taiga…taiga…jyutaiga…(*the catch phrase that Tora -the main character always says in the beginning of his story-telling time)

I cannot stop laughing from the very first time I watched this dorama. To summarize in few words, this is a story about a young yakuza named Kotora who wants to be a professional “rakugo” (read: traditional Japanese lone storyteller/traditional Japanese comical monologues).

Yamazaki Kotora, which is played by Nagase Tomoya (previously played in Mukodono as Sakuraba Yuichiro (Kotora name can be translated as tiger cub) is a yakuza whose work is collecting debts from people who borrow money from his boss who he refers as “oyaji” (read: father). Until one day he comes to a restaurant to collect the debt owed by Hayashiatei Donbei. Donbei borrowed a huge sum of money from Kotora’s boss to help his son, Ryuji (literally Ryu means dragon) who wanted to open his own clothing line called Dragon Soda. Unfortunately, the shop doesn’t do well and Donbei can’t pay back his debt. Pretending to go to the toilet, Donbei tries escaping by leaving the place via the back door. Tora apparently can read his plan and secretly follows Donbei. The chasing ends up in a small theater where rakugo shows are held. In that place, Tora gets to know a profession called rakugo at the first time. He quickly learns that Donbei is a rakugo master and in fact a quite famous one. Everybody is always expecting his appearance on the stage. While waiting for Donbei’s next move, Tora sits in the audience seat and ends up enjoying himself watching Donbei’s performance till the end. Having encountered the world of rakugo for the first time, Tora gets too excited and suddenly approaches Donbei (with his usual scary expression XD) uttering his motives to learn under Donbei’s supervisionto be a professional rakugo.   In short, Tora finally makes a deal with Donbei that he will pay tution fee 10,000 yen (around $100) per story and Donbei will pay his debt using that money. 

At the end of each episode, I guarantee you will be laughing watching Tora pays Donbei his tution fee while expressing his gratitute for what he has learned and couple seconds afterwards he turns from student and back to his yakuza’s job, then acts scary forcing Donbei to pay his debt (obviously using the money that he just gives to him) .

Tora does not have a talent to be a professional rakugo. He cannot remember clearly his story and often forgets his line while on stage, which makes the audiences get annoyed and complain about his flaws. But as the story develops, we see that Tora experiences many real-life stories in today’s modern world which are in many ways very similar to the rakugo stories that he is about to perform. By realizing this, he later uses his experiences to retell the story with the same title but using a way, what so called, Tora’s style.

In contrast, Donbei’s son, Ryuji, is a natural genius born rakugo. However, because of dissapointment caused by his rakugo shinsei (teacher) who is also Donbei’s competitor, Ryuji decides quitting rakugo for good and starts with his own essentric clothing line business.

The two meet up when both of them cross path through a girl named Megumi. Megumi, played by Ito Misaki (from yama onna kabe onna). Megumi is a beautiful girl who is nice and kind to everybody and she is loved and adored by everybody especially men. Guys love Megumi even they know this woman changes partner from time to time but they can always forgive her. No exception for Ryuji who is head over heels in love with her and gets so upset when he knows Tora has one night stand with her (not forgetting Megumi keeps mentioning they’ve done it twice). But always…Megumi chan is always forgiven because she’s cute and kind.

I think this dorama is one of a kind. You will enjoy every episode which is always combination between rakugo traditional Japanese folk story (potrayed in Japanese old time) and real modern time Tora’s style story.