A girl watches her father's voice break the world open, then watches it break him. Six years later, she's teaching herself to do the same thing, to make people feel something real with nothing but her body and her breath. Rakugo isn't a sport or a skill to master; it's a way to become human in front of strangers, and Akane is willing to burn everything to learn it.

Akane Ousaki has loved watching her father perform rakugo, the traditional Japanese art of comic storytelling, since she was a small child. During his crucial test for promotion to shin'uchi, the highest rank, she sees something shocking happen, and he leaves rakugo behind. Six years later, Akane is a high school student who has kept practicing on her own. After a chance performance wins her an apprenticeship with her father's former teacher, she sets out to earn the shin'uchi rank in his place. The drama plays out in the fiercely competitive rakugo world.