Momotaro (桃太郎) or Peach Boy is a rakugo piece built on one of Japan’s best‑known folktales, and that alone makes it stand out. It’s rare for an entire folktale to appear inside a rakugo story, and even rarer for the performer to spend so much time in straight narration rather than the usual back‑and‑forth of character dialogue. For performers like me, who love the energy of conversational storytelling, this shift in style becomes a surprisingly refreshing challenge.
To be very honest, it isn’t my favourite story to perform, but the tale itself is wonderfully crafted.
The frame story is quite simple. A father is trying desperately to get his son, Kimbo, to sleep. His chosen strategy is the classic tale of Momotaro: the old couple, the giant peach, the brave boy who grows up to defeat the ogres of Onigashima with the help of a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant.
But Ken is not the “innocent child” of the olden days. He is a modern kid, raised in an age of Google searches and endless information. He bombards his father with questions.
The father, of course, has no answers. And before long, the child takes over the storytelling entirely.
This video was filmed during the pandemic as part of the Creative New Zealand–funded Online Rakugo Project. I look so much younger, and my rakugo skills were still very raw. But it’s good, sometimes, to look back and see how far I’ve come 😁
English Rakugo NZ 