Small-time crook Yotaro has never forgotten the rakugo tale "Shinigami," which the master Yurakutei Yakumo performed for Yotaro during his time in prison. After his release, he goes to Yakumo's theater and pleads to be made his apprentice. Yakumo reluctantly accepts, but Yotaro quckly finds the world of rakugo is complex, and grapples with a growing bond with Yakumo's ward, Konatsu, and reminders from his own inescapable past. PAST PROMISES After proving himself on stage, Yotaro has been fully accepted as Yakumo's apprentice and a member of his household. But taking in this brash young man forces Yakumo to confront his own past, and thepromises left unfulfilled to his late best friend and rival, Sukeroku. Yakumo decides to share a tale that begins not when he was adignified artist, but an orphan named Bon. Bon's history is also the history of fellow orphan Shin, a changing Japan in the face of war, and a woman named Miyokichi, who would hold the future in her elusive hands... A multi-generational human drama set in the world of rakugo, a traditional form of Japanese comedic storytelling, Descending Stories follows an ex-convict whose life is changed by his apprenticeship to a famed storyteller, and Konatsu, who yearns to perform rakugo but cannot because women are not permitted in the craft.