The World Is Dancing Episode 6 Puts Oniyasha on the Brink of Quitting
The episode pushes Oniyasha to the edge of quitting dance, forcing him to confront the difference between himself and Kogane, who fled to a village after failing as a dancer.
Reporting from 1 source: Anime News Network.
Episode 6 of The World Is Dancing sees Oniyasha lose his lion-dance competition against Zojiro of the Shinza Dengaku troupe, leaving the shogun ready to give up on his protege. Saved by Zojiro's sportsmanship and a few gracious audience members, Oniyasha still considers abandoning dance entirely, until a reunion with the village boy Kogane reframes his calling.
Oniyasha's loss to Zojiro in the lion-dance competition lands hard. The shogun Yoshimitsu, characterized as easygoing until now, takes the failure of his hand-selected artisan personally, and Oniyasha himself is so distraught he flings himself into the river.
He gets a reprieve through Zojiro's sportsmanship and a few audience members who claim to have enjoyed his bizarre performance. But the real turn comes when Oniyasha reunites with Kogane, the village boy who was kicked out of the Shinza troupe and now lives an anonymous life. Oniyasha seriously considers giving up dance to do the same.
The episode draws a line between the two: Kogane fled because he failed as a dancer, while Oniyasha is not really a dancer at all. He is filled with love for the stories of the earth and the people who toil in it, and dance is the only way to exorcise those stories. The white-haired man has been trying to teach him this, and the doomed old monk at the end shows that stories come at a cost.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Anime News Network The World Is Dancing Episode 6