It follows teenager Akane Osaki as she aims to reach the highest rank in rakugo, partly to avenge her father, who was expelled from the profession six years earlier.

Growing up, Akane admired her father and his rakugo, a traditional Japanese form of storytelling where a lone performer, called a rakugoka, depicts a long, complicated, and usually funny story involving multiple characters, who are distinguished by changes in pitch, tone, slight turns of the head, and hand movements, all while sitting in place.

Realizing it was his job to make them interested, he said he tried to get readers emotionally invested in the characters, and to broaden the scope to appeal to those unfamiliar with rakugo.

[5] To draw the rakugo scenes in the manga, Moue listens to a performance of the relevant story and thinks about how to convey the speed and intonation.

[6] Although Kazuhiro Ito of Good Life with Books also noted the similarities, he reported that Suenaga stated Issho Arakawa was instead modeled after Enshō Sanyūtei VI [ja].

[6] According to Hayashiya, the Yasaka-tei and Edobashi-tei theaters in the manga were modeled after Suehiro-tei [ja] in Shinjuku and the Oedo Nihonbashi-tei in Nihonbashi, respectively.

The first chapter of Akane-banashi received a motion comic adaptation, where voice actors, music and sound effects are heard as the manga images appear on screen.

[57] The Young Adult Library Services Association included the first volume of Akane-banashi on its 2024 list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens.

[60] In a review for Multiversity Comics, Zach Wilkerson gave the "immensely charming and well crafted" first chapter an 8.5 rating, with particular praise for Moue's art.

He felt that although Akane's progress in rakugo seemed to be going unusually fast and smooth, with her not yet being confronted by a tough challenge or failing at something, this allows readers to follow her growth without unnecessary stress.

Mukaihara speculated that, while this could simply be because the manga was still new and needed to develop quickly in order to gain momentum, it emphasizes Akane's cleverness and the depth of her determination and is a testament to the charm of the characters and the skill with which the story is written.

[1] Blackburn's colleague Ben Sockol praised later chapters of the series for "subverting the classic tournament arc trope", writing that Akane-banashi feels fresh and different from anything else in Weekly Shōnen Jump and is one of the most exciting manga currently running in the magazine as of June 2022.