Well… I do agree with your second paragraph pretty much entirely. They did a great job of cranking up the drama surrounding her performance, and especially by making the introduction so simple and seemingly drab. That sets the stage for a very dramatic transition to… something, and I think it’s definitely going to be worth seeing. I’d enjoy it more without all of the ad hoc narrators telling me things that I could figure out on my own, but it’s shounen, so that’s the way it goes. It’ll still likely be worth seeing the rest of her performance.

But at this point, that’s the only thing keeping me going.

I appreciate what you’re saying, and you may well be right and I’m just too cynical. But I just don’t believe there’s any legitimate in-universe explanation for Issho’s transformation or the direction the story’s going. IMO, it has nothing to do with the art of storytelling, and everything to do with Jump’s business model. In order to turn the series into a cash cow they could milk as long as possible, it was necessary to dump Akane’s initial, concrete goal of getting far enough in rakugo to confront Issho and win some justice for her father and replace it with some more nebulous goal, and that’s exactly what they’re doing.

But I do still at least want to see the rest of her performance.