What If Saito Hitori Was Oedipus? A Joyful Rewrite of Fate

When we hear the name Oedipus, most of us brace ourselves. Few stories in the history of theater carry such weight, such inevitability, such an unbearable sense of doom. Sophocles did not give us a gentle play—he gave us a mirror to the harshest truth: that sometimes, no matter how we struggle, fate will still crush us.

But what if we don’t stop at tragedy? What if we dare to pick up Sophocles’ mirror and tilt it toward the light?

This is where Saito Hitori steps in. Known for his wisdom and laughter, Hitori transforms life’s darkest riddles into jokes that heal. He is a man who believes that shame dissolves when spoken aloud, that laughter has the power to scatter even the heaviest clouds, and that joy is not a luxury but a medicine.

So, what happens when Saito Hitori takes the role of Oedipus Rex? Instead of blinding himself with despair, he teaches Thebes to see clearly through forgiveness. Instead of letting prophecy crush him, he uses it as compost to grow figs and honey cakes. Instead of collapsing into shame, he invites everyone to rename their past and step into a brighter tomorrow.

This reimagined Oedipus Rex is not about mocking tragedy—it’s about rewriting its ending. It asks: Can we accept the truth without collapsing under it? Can we laugh, not to escape sorrow, but to rob sorrow of its tyranny? Can we make even fate itself chuckle at how small it looks when faced with gratitude?

Here is Saito Hitori Oedipus Rex: The King of Smiles. A story that begins in plague and prophecy, but ends in laughter, healing, and a kingdom renewed.

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.)

Act I — The Curse and the Joke

Thebes wore its sorrow like dust: on faces, on doorways, on the leaves of the olive trees. Smoke from sacrificial fires drifted across the agora, and coughs stitched through conversations. People spoke softly to keep their hope from breaking.

Onto this hush stepped the king—not the thunder-browed solver of riddles the city remembered, but Oedipus with a light in his eyes and a smile that seemed to have its own gentle gravity. He lifted his hands.

“Good people,” he said, “two gifts are free today: air and a kind word. Take both.”

The crowd blinked. Kindness felt extravagant in a week like this.

A woman from the chorus, shawl tight around her shoulders, called out, “Lord, the plague still eats our children. The gods are offended. We are frightened.”

“Fear is a guest,” Oedipus replied lightly. “We’ll give it tea, not the throne.”

Murmurs traveled like small waves. He went on:

“I have sent Creon to Delphi for a word. When he returns, we’ll listen with both ears. Until then, we can do what is always within reach: gratitude for breath, laughter for medicine, and help for whomever is standing closest.”

“Laughter?” a man coughed, half-amused, half-offended. “At a time like this?”

“Especially at a time like this,” Oedipus said. “Heavy things fall. Light things float. Let us help each other float.”

Trumpets sounded from the gate. Creon entered, dusted with road and oracle. He bowed, eyes grave.

“Speak,” Oedipus said, soft as a hand on a shoulder.

“The god declares,” Creon intoned, “that the city is polluted by a hidden crime. The blood of King Laius was unjustly spilled. We must bring the murderer to light and purge the stain.”

The murmurs sharpened. Some heads turned toward the palace, some toward the earth.

Oedipus nodded once, as if he’d been braced for a blow that arrived as a nudge. “Then we will clean, not curse,” he said. “Thebes is a house. When the floor is dirty, we don’t set the house on fire—we sweep.”

Creon blinked. “You make it sound… domestic.”

“Justice is housekeeping,” Oedipus said, smiling. “Today, we open the windows.”

He stepped forward. “Three promises, if you’ll lend them: tell truth gently, forgive fully, fix openly. I will start with me. If truth points at my friends, I will protect them while they repair. If truth points at me, I will repair faster than anyone.”

The chorus exchanged looks—this was not the iron oath they expected, but something warmer and stranger. And yet, some shoulders already dropped a fraction.

“Send for Tiresias,” Oedipus said. “And for bakers. If we are to confess, we should do it with fig cakes on the table.”

“You make a festival of everything,” the chorus woman muttered, almost smiling.

Oedipus winked. “Plagues fear festivals.”

Tiresias arrived led by a boy, ash-grey cloak wrapped around his old shoulders, sightless eyes bright in their own way. He seemed to hear the smile in Oedipus’ voice before the king spoke.

“Master,” Oedipus said, bowing, “welcome. We’re holding a Day of Gentle Questions.”

Tiresias tilted his head, as though listening to a wind the rest could not feel. “Gentle questions?” he said, his voice cracked like dry wood. “The truth is rarely gentle.”

“Then we will wrap it in laughter,” Oedipus replied with a grin. “Even sharp things hurt less when we laugh at how clumsy we look holding them.”

The old prophet snorted. “Your tongue makes riddles sound like riddles again.”

“That’s my specialty,” Oedipus said. “Now, what has Apollo whispered into your ear?”

The courtyard hushed. Even the coughing stopped.

Tiresias’ voice grew heavier, like stone being lowered. “The murderer you seek is here. A man crowned, but blind in his knowing. A stranger who is kin, a father’s slayer, a mother’s husband.”

The words rippled through the crowd. Women gasped. Men muttered. All eyes turned to their king.

Oedipus did not stagger. He chuckled softly, like someone hearing an insult too absurd to sting. “If that’s me, then my life is already a play funnier than the comedies at Dionysia. A man kills his father, marries his mother, and doesn’t even know? The gods must be playwrights with very odd humor.”

Gasps again. Some were scandalized, others… secretly relieved. The terror in the oracle’s words loosened its grip when Oedipus laughed at it.

Tiresias frowned. “You mock the prophecy?”

“I bow to it,” Oedipus answered gently. “But I refuse to panic. If I am this man, then my punishment is already written in the stars. Why add despair to it? Better to say: thank you, life, for being so ridiculously strange.”

The chorus shifted, confused. Creon whispered, “Brother, the people expect fury or denial.”

“Then let them be surprised,” Oedipus said, winking.

He turned to the citizens. “If I am the cause, I will not gouge my eyes or flee into the wilderness. I’ll bake bread, plant figs, and build a school for children to laugh in. Plagues thrive on bitterness—so we will starve it with joy. If another man is guilty, we’ll help him confess, forgive, and fix. Either way, Thebes wins.”

The crowd murmured—first with doubt, then with cautious relief.

An old man in the chorus raised his cane. “But guilt cannot be washed so easily!”

Oedipus walked to him, knelt, and bowed his head. “Strike me, then. Punish me with your cane. And when your arm is tired, will your heart be lighter? Or heavier?”

The old man trembled, lowered the cane, and whispered, “Heavier.”

“Exactly,” Oedipus said warmly. “Punishment grows pain. Forgiveness grows figs. Which do you prefer in your yard?”

Laughter bubbled, hesitant at first, then freer. Even Tiresias’ mouth twitched, against his will.

Later, in the palace, Jocasta approached. She had heard the whispers, the laughter, the strange turning of fear into play.

“My husband,” she said carefully, “are you not afraid? The oracle’s words are no small matter.”

“Afraid? Of course,” Oedipus answered. “But fear is like a wild horse—it throws you if you clutch too tight. I pat it, laugh at its teeth, and ride it gently.”

Jocasta raised an eyebrow. “And if the prophecy is true? If you truly are Laius’ killer?”

“Then I will host a banquet in his honor,” Oedipus said. “I’ll tell stories of his courage and his wisdom. I’ll bow to his memory and let the people see that mistakes—however terrible—can still lead to healing if we choose love over shame.”

Jocasta stared, stunned. In another telling, she would already be unraveling into despair. But here, a laugh slipped from her lips. “You are either mad or blessed.”

“Both,” Oedipus said with a wink. “But madness with joy is safer than sanity with despair.”

She laughed again, a sound that startled even her.

That evening, the chorus gathered for a hymn. Instead of dirges, Oedipus commanded them to sing something brighter.

“Sing of figs,” he told them. “Sing of bread, of children chasing geese, of how even a plague cannot stop a man from telling bad jokes.”

And so they sang, awkward at first, then louder, until the city square was filled not with lamentation but with ridiculous verses about figs, goats, and laughter chasing shadows away.

Thebes, for the first time in many seasons, forgot to cough.

And Oedipus stood among them, smiling, whispering to himself, “If fate must have its joke, let it be the kind that ends in applause, not tears.”

The curtain of Act I does not drop—it rises, because the story is not of a fall, but of a climb toward something brighter.

Act II — The Mother and the Mirror

The next morning, Thebes woke to the sound of brooms. Not soldiers marching, not priests chanting—brooms. Oedipus had ordered the streets swept and the lintels wiped as if dust itself were a negotiable curse. Children carried baskets of flowers; bakers sliced loaves the size of shields. Between coughs, people found themselves humming yesterday’s ridiculous fig-song.

Creon found Oedipus on the palace steps handing out dates. “The messenger from Corinth waits within,” he said. “News of your father, Polybus.”

Oedipus nodded and popped a date in his mouth like a coin into a slot. “Send him.”

The Corinthian messenger entered, hat in hand, weather on his cloak. “Lord Oedipus,” he began, voice creaky with travel, “I come with sorrow dressed as relief. King Polybus is dead—peacefully, old age—and the throne of Corinth asks for you.”

Gasps, then a tumble of murmurs. Oedipus lifted his palms for quiet. “Peacefully?” he asked, almost sheepish. “No chariots, no crossroads, no… sharp instruments?”

“None,” the messenger said. “He died as an autumn leaf lets go—on time.”

Oedipus laughed softly, half in awe, half in embarrassment at himself. “Then the prophecy failed on one leg. I did not kill him.”

A flutter of hope moved through the square.

But Tiresias, who had arrived without anyone noticing, tilted his head. “Or the prophecy took a longer route.”

Oedipus bowed to the old man. “Master, we will keep listening. Messenger, did Polybus ever speak… of my birth?”

The man scratched his ear, glanced at Jocasta, then tried the truth. “He loved you well. But no—he did not beget you. He received you.”

A silence so clean you could see your reflection in it.

“Received?” Jocasta said, voice low.

The messenger nodded. “Years ago, on Mount Cithaeron, a shepherd gave me a baby—ankles pinned, poor mites—telling me to carry him somewhere safe. I took him to Corinth. Polybus and Merope raised the child as their own.”

Oedipus looked down at his ankles as if they might answer back. He bent, lifted the hem, and traced faint scars like old punctuation. He smiled—a strange, tender, brave thing. “So I travelled a wide circle to return to my own name.”

A murmur became a rustle became the first wind of realization. Jocasta’s hands found each other and held on.

Oedipus looked up, eyes bright with something bigger than fear. “Who was the shepherd?”

“An old hand of King Laius,” the messenger said. “He would know.”

Oedipus clapped once, lightly. “Then let’s stop whispering around doors and bring the shepherd to the sun. Truth sunburns less when we share shade.”

The shepherd came pushed by years and a guard’s gentle hand. He had the face of a man who has buried more stories than people.

“Old friend,” Oedipus said, “we are having a Day of Mirrors. We stand, we look, we don’t faint. You once carried a bundle on Cithaeron. Who tied those ankles?”

The shepherd’s gaze fell to the floor as if the floor had earned it. “I… I did not tie them. I untied them. The knot came from the palace. I was to leave the child on the mountain. But I couldn’t. I handed the boy to this Corinthian and… I hoped the gods would take the rest.”

Oedipus inhaled, slow and even, like a man stepping into cold water. “And the bundle—whose?”

The shepherd lifted his eyes, and inside them a whole kingdom shivered. “Yours, my lord. King Laius’ blood, Queen Jocasta’s body. Your name meant ‘swollen foot’ before it meant ‘solver of riddles.’ I thought I was saving a life. It seems I also planted a riddle.”

A sound rose from the people, not a scream and not a sigh—a large, aching oh. Jocasta closed her eyes, a palm to her mouth. Tiresias stood very still, the way a tree stands for a storm: not to resist it, but to meet it with roots.

Oedipus reached for Jocasta’s hand and found it. He faced the city with his wife’s fingers laced in his, and when he spoke, his voice had both humor and tears in it.

“There,” he said. “The mirror has finally told the truth. We are the punchline to a very ancient joke. It is not the one we would have written.”

The chorus waited for rage, for self-punishment, for the old ending to resume. Oedipus took a breath, and turned the wheel.

“Hear me, Thebes. I will not blind myself. Eyes are built for beauty; they have suffered enough. I will not run to rocks. My feet have already done too much wandering. And I will not drown our city in shame. Shame grows in silence; joy grows in sunlight. Therefore I propose this: We will rename what happened, and we will repair what it harmed.”

He turned to Jocasta, eyes clear. “Beloved, we annul what we did not know. Before gods and people, we dissolve our marriage and restore its right order: you, Queen-Mother; I, Son-King. Today, we step out of a circle into a line that points forward.”

Jocasta’s face broke—not with despair, but with relief so deep it looked like weeping. She squeezed his hand. “Yes,” she whispered. “Let us choose clean words.”

Oedipus looked to the priest who had married them. “Will you bless this change?”

The priest, who had prepared all his life for sacrifices of oxen and not for this sacrifice of pride, nodded through tears. “Yes. The gods care more for straight hearts than for straight paperwork.”

Oedipus faced the city again. “And to you, Thebans: do not let scandal feed on your breath. Take it to the square, name it, laugh gently at how human we all are, and then go plant something. We will hold a Festival of New Names. Whoever needs to separate from an old mistake—today you can. With witnesses, with songs, and with honey on your tongues so the words do not cut on the way out.”

A murmur of amazed laughter passed over the crowd like a warm wind. The chorus—elders who had practiced sorrow until it felt like duty—found their lips wanting to smile. One of them croaked, “Honey is expensive, lord.”

“I will pay,” Oedipus said, deadpan. “Consider it a joke tax.”

Jocasta barked a laugh she had not known her body still remembered. “And let the queen-mother pay in apricots. I am rich in trees.”

The shepherd, whose shoulders had lived under a mountain of secret, sank to his knees. “My king, my queen—how can I repay this mercy?”

“Live longer,” Oedipus said, pulling him gently up. “Tell boys on hills to choose kindness. Tell girls in kitchens to choose courage. Tell yourself, when you lie down, that you chose life once and are allowed to choose it again.”

Word flew. In the square, tables were set with bread and figs, and a line formed for Certificates of New Names—ceremonial scrolls, tied with ribbon, declaring aloud what society would rather whisper: I am no longer that person; I am this one. A widow let go of bitterness and took the name Peace-bearer. A merchant confessed to cheating measures and took the name Full-measure. A soldier shook hands with an old enemy and took the name Bridge-walker. The city began to change faster than the weather.

Tiresias drew near Oedipus as the scrolls piled. “You have cheated tragedy,” he said, almost accusing, almost admiring.

“I have cheated nothing,” Oedipus answered. “I have paid in a different currency. Sorrow demanded an eye. I offered a festival. The gods seem to have accepted the exchange rate.”

The prophet’s mouth tilted. “Careful. The gods love cleverness, but they love humility more.”

Oedipus bowed. “Then let humility set the tables.”

Jocasta approached with a wreath of olive leaves. “For you,” she said, placing it on Oedipus’ head. “Not as husband—never again—but as son, and as king who would rather heal than hide.”

He swallowed. “Mother,” he said, feeling the word change temperature in his mouth—no longer a secret, not yet easy, but possible. The crowd watched the transformation with the hush people give to sunrise.

“Creon,” Oedipus called, “draw up a charter: A House of Healing behind the palace, where wrongs can be spoken and roles repaired. Let every confession come with counsel, every ending with a new beginning. Staff it with midwives and gardeners. They know how to help things come into the world without tearing it.”

Creon smiled despite himself. “At once.”

Up on the palace gallery, a banner unfurled—embroidered overnight because some seamstresses were faster than history. It read: WE FIX QUICKLY in letters large enough to argue with the sky.

The chorus leader cleared his throat, uncertain how to sing something that didn’t end in catastrophe. Oedipus helped.

“Try this,” he said, clapping a rhythm, light as bread crumbs. “We clean with truth, we bless with names; we laugh at fate’s untidy games.”

The chorus repeated, stumbling, then found the tune. People joined, some off-key, all sincere. Laughter stitched the intervals like golden thread.

As the hymn rose, a breeze moved through Thebes, and with it, a change no priest could quantify: the stink of sickness thinned. Children who had coughed all night slept. The olive leaves looked shinier than they had any right to. No miracle trumpeted—just a body, a city, deciding to unclench.

The messenger from Corinth stood to the side, watching a king turn ruin into ritual. “Will you still claim Corinth?” he asked softly when he found a lull.

Oedipus shook his head, smiling. “Corinth can keep its tidy lineage. Thebes needs a janitor.”

“And the prophecy?” the man pressed.

Oedipus spread his hands. “It came true and not true. It broke us and built us. Like most prophecies, it was less a sentence than a mirror. We have looked—and we have not fainted.”

He lifted his voice for the city. “Thebes! Today we learned that shame dissolves when named, that love can reset the law, and that laughter is a rope thrown across a chasm. Tomorrow, we will learn more. Bring your mistakes to the square at dawn; we will practice together.”

Jocasta linked her arm in his—not as wife, but as mother and ally. Tiresias, listening to a wind only he could hear, chuckled quietly, as if some old god had just told him a very new joke.

The curtain of Act II does not fall; it opens wider. Somewhere beyond the walls, the air prepares a dawn. Inside the city, the people are suddenly ready to meet it.

Thebes rose to dawn as though it had been practicing all night. Smoke from sacrifice fires was replaced by the steam of fresh bread. The coughs that once patterned the air were fewer, and even those who coughed did so with less despair. The plague had begun to retreat—not by thunderbolts or priests’ wails, but by laughter, forgiveness, and the strangest medicine of all: joy.

Oedipus stood in the agora, robe loose, face bright. He held up a small wooden cup. “This,” he announced, “is not wine. It’s water with lemon. Drink it slowly, and you’ll feel a prophecy dissolve on your tongue.”

The crowd chuckled. Children mimicked him, pretending to sip invisible cups. Women shook their heads, smiling at the absurdity of their king. But absurdity had become safer than sorrow.

Creon approached, a scroll in hand. “Brother, the priests want clarity. What do we call this new order you’re building? The oracle demanded punishment, not… picnics.”

“Call it housekeeping,” Oedipus said. “The gods don’t need more bodies on the altar; they need us to sweep our hearts and dust our minds. That’s what lifts curses faster than knives.”

Creon opened the scroll: plans for the House of Healing. “You truly mean to staff it with gardeners and midwives?”

“Who else knows better how to bring life without harm?” Oedipus said, grinning. “Besides, they’re cheaper than philosophers.”

A ripple of laughter spread. Even Creon allowed himself a smile.

At midday, Jocasta entered the square. Her face, which once carried the weight of forbidden bonds, now carried a strange new lightness. She addressed the people with clear, ringing tones.

“Citizens of Thebes, yesterday I was your queen and your scandal. Today I stand as Queen-Mother, teacher, and witness to what forgiveness can do. My son—my husband no longer—has shown me that shame is not a sentence, but a shadow. Step into sunlight, and the shadow vanishes.”

She turned to Oedipus, eyes moist but steady. “And you, my child—your name once meant swollen foot. Today it means lifted heart.”

The crowd applauded, not wildly, but like people learning how to clap for the first time.

A messenger burst through the gates. His sandals were cracked, his tunic dusty. “Lord Oedipus!” he cried. “The Sphinx returns! Her riddle unsolved, she threatens to bring ruin again.”

Gasps flew. Mothers clutched children. Thebes remembered the monster’s claws, her strangling riddles.

Oedipus raised his hand, calm as morning bread. “Tell her to meet me at the city’s edge. I will bring figs.”

“Figs?” the messenger stammered.

“Of course,” Oedipus said. “Every monster gets bored of fear eventually. Let’s try dessert.”

At the edge of Thebes, under a sky that still smelled of prophecy, the Sphinx crouched—wings spread, eyes like suns. “Oedipus!” she roared. “You cheated me once with an answer. Now answer again, or your city burns.”

Oedipus stepped forward carrying a basket. “Good morning. Hungry?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Figs,” he said, holding one up. “Sweet, messy, impossible to eat without smiling. Try one.”

The Sphinx snarled. “I do not eat figs. I devour men.”

“Devouring men is boring,” Oedipus replied. “Try figs. If you don’t laugh, I’ll let you keep your bad habits.”

The Sphinx, curious despite herself, snatched the fruit. She bit. Juice ran down her chin. She scowled—and then, against every instinct, she chuckled. A wing twitched. Her lips betrayed her with a smile.

“See?” Oedipus said, delighted. “Even riddles taste sweeter when you chew slowly.”

The Sphinx dropped the rest of the fig, wings folding. “What trick is this?”

“No trick,” Oedipus said. “Only a reminder. Monsters are just sadness in costumes. Feed them something sweet, and they remember they were children once.”

The Sphinx stared at him, eyes no longer suns but tired lanterns. She exhaled. “Then my riddle is finished.” With a final shudder, she dissolved into dust that smelled faintly of figs.

By evening, Thebes was feasting. Tables overflowed with honey cakes, figs, olives, lamb. The chorus sang not laments but jokes set to music. Children crowned each other with flower wreaths. Soldiers stacked their spears like firewood and danced awkwardly, unarmed.

In the center, Oedipus raised a goblet of real wine this time. “People of Thebes, we have rewritten our prophecy. We have learned that curses are cowards—they flee when we laugh at them. We have learned that shame is fragile—it cracks when named. And we have learned that joy is stronger than fate, because joy is a choice we can repeat every morning.”

He turned to Jocasta. “Mother, thank you for choosing life again.”

She bowed. “Thank you for showing me how.”

He turned to Creon. “Thank you for drafting laws with honey instead of knives.”

Creon smirked. “Don’t thank me yet. Honey is expensive.”

The crowd laughed.

Finally, he turned to the people. “Thank you for daring to laugh in the middle of plague. You are braver than prophecy.”

The chorus stepped forward, no longer robed in sorrow but in bright cloth. Their hymn rose:

We clean with truth, we bless with names,
We laugh at fate’s untidy games.
Thebes is no longer cursed with tears,
But crowned with joy for all our years.

As they sang, the sun dipped low, spilling gold on stone. Thebes glowed as if it had been forgiven not by the gods, but by itself.

And Oedipus, no longer the tragic king of blind eyes and broken lineage, stood as the King of Smiles—proof that even the darkest prophecy can be rewritten when someone dares to meet it with gratitude, forgiveness, and laughter.

The curtain does not fall. It lifts into starlight, where laughter still echoes, and fate itself chuckles at having been outwitted.

Final Thoughts By Nick Sasaki

The story of Oedipus has always been taught as a caution: that we cannot escape destiny, and that pride leads to downfall. Yet in this retelling, the lesson is gentler and more generous. Destiny may still weave its tangled web, but we are not powerless. We can decide how to meet it.

Saito Hitori’s Oedipus teaches us that mistakes—no matter how terrible—do not have to imprison us. They can become classrooms. Shame does not have to end in silence or punishment; it can be transformed by laughter and love. A prophecy need not be a prison; it can be a riddle whose answer is compassion.

Thebes was healed not because the gods demanded blood, but because its people chose to forgive, to confess, and to laugh together. In that sense, the curse was not lifted by sacrifice—it was lifted by joy.

And perhaps this is why we need this story today. Many of us walk with “prophecies” hanging over our heads: old mistakes, inherited burdens, fears of failure. We think these shadows must define us. But Oedipus-Hitori reminds us that we can step into the sun, rename ourselves, and choose a future not written by shame but by kindness.

Sophocles gave us a tragic king blinded by despair. Saito Hitori gives us a smiling king who sees clearly. Both are true. Both matter. But tonight, as we close the book, let us carry the lantern of joy. Let us remember that even when fate feels heavy, laughter can make it float.

So may we be like Thebes—learning to sing instead of wail, to feast instead of fear, and to build our own Houses of Healing in the places shame once ruled. For in the end, destiny may set the stage, but we choose whether the play ends in sorrow or in smiles.

Short Bios:

Saito Hitori as Oedipus — The King of Thebes reimagined not as a tragic victim of fate, but as a bringer of laughter, figs, and forgiveness, transforming prophecy into joy.

Jocasta — Once the queen and tragic mother-wife, here she becomes Queen-Mother, a figure of dignity and compassion, guiding Thebes with gentleness after shame dissolves into light.

Creon — Oedipus’ brother-in-law and loyal statesman, transformed from rival into partner, drafting laws of healing and honey instead of punishment.

Tiresias — The blind prophet, grave and wise, yet surprised into laughter by Oedipus’ wit, reminding us that even seers can learn new ways of seeing.

The Shepherd — The old servant who once saved Oedipus as an infant, now a symbol of confession and mercy, showing that even secrets can be forgiven.

The Sphinx — No longer a monster of riddles and death, but a figure who, after tasting figs and laughing, dissolves into joy, proving that even fear can be transformed.

The Chorus of Thebes — The city’s voice, shifting from lament to laughter, discovering that healing belongs not to kings or gods alone, but to everyone willing to sing.

Nick Sasaki — Founder of Imaginary Talks and narrator of this reimagining, he frames the story with reflection and warmth, guiding audiences to see how Saito Hitori’s laughter can rewrite even the darkest tragedies into healing tales.