New in paperback. Hardcover was published in 2021. Rakugo (comic storytelling) has played a major role in Japanese culture and society, and yet has been largely overlooked in scholarship. This pioneering study of the Kamigata (Osaka) rakugo tradition presents the first complete English translation of five classic rakugo stories, and offers a history of comic storytelling in Kamigata (modern Kansai, Kinki) from the seventeenth century to the present day.