Joshiraku is an anime from 2013, which follows the lives of five young female rakugo comedians. If you've watched or read Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei or Kakushigoto, you'll be instantly familiar with the original creator, Kōji Kumeta, His stories tend to be fairly comedic, with a lot of references to anime, japanese culture, and whatever else he can find. Fairly recently the ending theme to the series got popular out of nowhere, which led me to sit down and watch through it myself.

What Joshiraku boils down is that it's a show about nothing essentially. What do I mean by this? The only consistent thing about it aside from the characters, is that they start each episode performing part of their story, which ends with them thanking the audience and entering the dressing room, which leads to the plot for the first segment.

For instance, in episode 1 the girls get an invitation to a casual dress party, and begin questioning what exactly "casual dress" means. Which in turn leads to them wondering if everyone prefers cats or dogs. A lot of jokes will go over your head, simply because they're not meant for you or I. This is simply an anime that is about Japanese Culture. This isn't to say there aren't a few Western references thrown in however, as they do reference Dirty Harry in episode 1, they even have a picture of KISS on screen at one point. But overall, it's really just Japanese-centric humor that your average fan won't get, because they don't live in Japan.

• Should You Watch Joshiraku?

No. This isn't to say "it's trash" or anything, far from it in fact. But unless you want to pause after every joke to look up "what the hell is Suehirotei?", you're going to be lost. There are some grade A references to anime you might catch, even a Space Sheriff Gavan reference, but overall you'll spend more time wondering what they're talking about, then you will be laughing at some of the comedy that isn't references. Joshiraku is a one of a kind series in this result, it's not bad, far from it, but it'll go over your head, because of everything it winds up referencing. The ED is a banger, which got popular, but you'll just walk away more confused about this, than you did when you began it.

The fourth wall breaking jokes are hilarious, the animation is great and the voice work is top notch. But that can't save it from just not being what myself or many others will actually get. Even "simple things" like the occasional jokes at one of Japan's former Prime Minster's is confusing, because you're left wondering "Who is that?", which leads to figuring out why he's a joke.