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 His art, a traditional,
male-only Japanese puppet theatre, was born in
Osaka in the late 1600s, but in 2020 felt
existentially threatened, he said.
"Many things crossed my mind: when would the
pandemic end, when would performances resume, if
my 87-year-old master could ever perform again,"
Kanjuro, 67, said in his home, which has a room
dedicated to puppetry.
The solution was to spend his time at home
making puppets for children. It is a rare
pursuit for a Bunraku puppeteer. To him, it tied
into decades of efforts he's made to keep the
centuries-old art of Bunraku alive. He has been
teaching Bunraku at Kozu elementary school in
Osaka for 17 years.
Nearly 30 sixth graders took part in recent
classes, with children practicing their puppetry
in a gymnasium amid scorching heat, as a
T-shirt-clad Kanjuro instructed them.
In Bunraku, each puppet is operated by three
people - the head puppeteer, and two others
dressed in black, their faces covered. The head
puppeteer manipulates the head and right hand,
while one person manipulates the left hand and
another both feet. Performances are accompanied
by narrators, or tayu, and traditional
instruments.
The five puppets Kanjuro made had comical faces
framed by yarn hair. They also wore socks in
neon-bright colours he had purchased online.
FROM THE FEET UP
Following his father's path, Kanjuro started his
career as a puppeteer at 14, becoming a disciple
of Minosuke Yoshida, who at age 87 is now the
oldest living puppeteer.
Like everyone else, he started with the puppets'
feet, then moved on to the left hand. It can
take more than 30 years until a puppeteer is
allowed to manipulate the head.
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 "It is an invisible and tough
role. Audiences do not know who you are and the
applause goes to the main puppeteer," he said,
referring to operating the limbs.
Understanding how to manipulate the feet is
crucial; the performer doing that touches the
waist of the lead puppeteer, feeling how he
moves. It was a lesson Kanjuro learned from his
late father, who even after illness left him
thin used his whole body to animate the puppet
as head puppeteer. "I learned
from him that you would have to use your entire
body - from your toes to fingertips - to make
the puppet come to life," Kanjuro recalls. "And
how a small and thin puppeteer could manipulate
a big puppet by doing that."
Kanjuro is one of Japan's best-known Bunraku
performers, but he still worries about securing
young talent.
The National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka provides a
free, two-year training course that more than
half the 83 current performers have graduated
from. But the art's popularity was waning even
before the pandemic, and only two students are
in training as of September.
Perhaps, Kanjuro muses, people hired to open
curtains or handout stage properties might fall
in love with Bunraku and want to study it.
Performances in Tokyo resumed on Sept. 5.
"Like Sumo and Rakugo where foreigners are
active, one day we may have foreign performers,"
Kanjuro said. "And it could only be a matter of
time before women take part as well."
(Reporting by Junko Fujita, editing by Elaine
Lies and Gerry Doyle)
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