Nobody talks about this one. Ten stories about a real yakuza told through the mouth of a street ballad singer, each one a complete arc that doesn't need the others but hits different because you're hearing them all. The show trusts you to sit with old Japanese oral tradition as its actual form, not as window dressing. Most anime about criminals make you care through spectacle or moral complexity. This one makes you care because the narrator believes these stories matter, and by episode three you do too.

Shimizu no Jirochouden adapts tales about Shimizu no Jirochou, one of the first yakuza, whose business centered on gambling and shipping by sea. The anime is made up of ten stories, with every one of them spread over three episodes. It draws on the version by Hirosawa Torazo II, a roukyoku performer; the form is also known as naniwabushi. Comedy and drama are its listed genres.