Who Is The Man in the Tiger Skin?
A lazy man who poses as a tiger
Man in the Tiger Skin (Dobutsuen)
The Man in the Tiger Skin is the hero of the classic rakugo tale Dobutsuen ("The Zoo"), a man who can't get up in the morning, hates hard work, and never lasts long at any job. The story was created in relatively recent times, and one theory says it is based on a foreign joke.
In Episode 7, he jumps at an easy job that "pays a daily wage just for sitting around." It turns out to be wearing a tiger skin and pacing a cage in place of the zoo's star tiger, which has died. He's a huge hit with visitors and gets carried away, until he hears that a "great battle between the tiger and the lion" is about to begin, and a real lion enters the cage, leaving him trembling.
