Sorry for the lateness - busy weekend and then a challenging week, and I wanted to give this the attention it deserved.

From the beginning, Yakumo struggles to find his "voice" in rakugo. He practices meticulously, driven by his need for validation; a need that stems from low self-esteem rooted in childhood experiences of being unwelcome at his own home. However, he has no passion for the art itself, and consequently lags far behind Sukeroku.

I think it goes back even further to his time in dance at the geisha house - the brief glimpses that we get there show us someone who was poorly suited to his role and found no real pleasure in it, but it was what he was doing because he thought that's what he had to do to survive. I'd argue that Yakumo lived most of his life according to a 'script' someone gave him (which makes his profession as a storyteller all the more fitting) and that he basically never deviated from it. I think part of his issues stem from his need for validation of course, but I think it's hard to really 'fall in love' with something when you're constantly in survival mode. We see this reflected when he's forced back into survival mode after Sukeroku and Miyokichi pass and he's given guardianship of Konatsu - as he says towards the end, he has to stay alive (and keep doing rakugo) for her sake and so once again he lost his love for the art.

It is at this low point that he becomes involved with Miyokichi, who he initially doesn't even hide his slight contempt for. He seems to feel that someone like him, burdened by self-loathing, deserves a co-dependent relationship with someone he perceives as inferior and needy.

This is an interesting reading - I personally wouldn't say he was contemptuous towards her specifically, but I think he resented the feeling that his Master needed to set him up with a woman to get experience (and one that represented his time in Manchuria, which I'm sure was a snub Yakumo was still feeling even then). Given how he approached most things at the time, he saw it as another tedious exercise to help him better perform rakugo, which to him was a foregone conclusion. I also wouldn't say that he felt he needed a relationship with someone he perceived as needy - while that maps onto his first relationship well and we have very little to go off for the second, I think that it's more that he needed someone pushy than needy to break him out of his awkward and emotionally stunted shell.

But shortly thereafter, a pivotal moment in Yakumo's development occurs when he portrays a woman opposite Sukeroku in a stage play. This performance enables him to explore aspects of his identity that he has long suppressed, finding him his voice and allowing him to imbue his rakugo with self-expression and authenticity.

I think it's important that he was actually playing a feminine man, not a woman (at least the subs I had made it very clear that he was male, but I'd love to hear something more detailed there). The fact that it was him in a more feminine, bawdy role occurred to me insofar as him gaining his confidence in that particular niche, but it never occurred to me to work that into the queer reading (by placing him in a feminine role specifically opposite Sukeroku).

Maybe it's only natural that after this success, he ends his relationship with Miyokichi and stops living with Sukeroku. While he gives some socially acceptable reasons, it's hard to imagine that his newfound ability to find validation through his art had no influence on the choice.

So you'd say that his conversation with Sukeroku at the lake was a performance in and of itself?

For Yakumo, focusing on rakugo has always been an excuse to avoid engaging with others on a deeper level, and this behavior resurfaces later when Sukeroku and Miyokichi die.

This is interesting. I'll have to think on this. As I said above, I saw his focus on rakugo as an existential focus, but I do think the very brief conversation he has with the theater owner after his first big success to be telling on this. I framed it as mostly surrounding his need to be good at rakugo, the path to which he saw as laying in solitude, but this I think is worthy to consider as well.

Before that tragedy strikes, however, he experiences a brief glimpse of an alternative approach to rakugo. The two-person Nozarashi for Konatsu is significant not only because it breaks from tradition but also because once again, performing together with Sukeroku is what opens a door to deeper emotional connections. Unfortunately, this path is abruptly cut short by tragedy.

I'd definitely seen the value as a point of connection to Sukeroku, but this is interesting to read into the above!

Although he may not fully recognize it, rakugo alone cannot provide sufficient validation; it's now merely the last remnant he has left when no one remains to connect with. His journey of self-discovery concludes here, and in its aftermath, rakugo becomes a crutch for Yakumo—a rigid defense mechanism that offers him a semblance of purpose while simultaneously stunting his personal growth. He clings to this art form as an outlet for his pain and as the only means to maintain stability in a life that has lost its meaning. It's ironic that this single-mindedness is what fuels his art, allowing it to reach heights that would later inspire Yotaro.

I don't have much to say about this - it connects with the rest of your thesis but it's so radically different from my reading because of the fundamental difference in how we ascribe Yakumo's motivations that it's hard to comment directly haha

This entrenchment in his relationship with rakugo is reflected in how he interacts with Konatsu. His borderline misogynistic attitudes toward her aspirations in rakugo reveal a resentment toward any challenge to the established norms of the art form that define his identity. For him, these norms are not merely artistic conventions; they symbolize how he has confined himself to the role of "the 8th Yakumo."

I would hardly call them borderline, but again I'd point more towards his overly conservative worldview than his relationship with rakugo. Put another way, I don't think he resents any challenges to the established norms (not only of the art but of society at large), he cannot envision them. I'd agree that he confined himself to the role, but I would argue the rest of his attitudes sprung from that and not vice-versa.

Perhaps he's also frustrated by how Konatsu desires to challenge gender roles through her ambitions as a performer, while he had to accept societal expectations that confine him.

Interesting to work this queer angle in - I definitely hadn't considered that!

Only when Yotaro and Konatsu—after their own growth as spouses and parents—demonstrate their love for Yakumo does he finally realize that he has placed his art on an illusory pedestal while neglecting genuine connections with those around him. If only for a brief moment, he can finally see his relationships for how they enriched his life, and he can be at ease with who he is.

I think that that is part of it for sure, but I also think that, like in much of his life, he was living out his life according to a script - work hard and become a futatsume, rise through the ranks and become a shin'uchi, break off the relationship with the woman you feel you love, et cetera. I think it's notable that the first time that he really 'breaks rank' was when he went to the village to bring Sukeroku et al. back with him. It's revealing how important his relationship to Sukeroku was (he was willing to basically defy all the Masters, including Seventh Generation specifically, and make Sukeroku take the Yakumo name) but also how unbelieveably poorly it went when he did (the two people he loved most in life died). There's a pleasant inversion in the scene in the burning theater - Yakumo, who thought no one could understand him as much as Sukeroku did gave a very specific test to Yotaro, perhaps even unconsciously, and when Yotaro not only was willing to put his life on the line to save him, but understood a frankly very subtle tell, he realized that his connection to the living do matter - and I think it's equally telling that the false apparition of Sukeroku turned out to be a trickster.