Oshi-Katsu Chronicle: Late Edo. Wearing Your Oshi's Pattern, Backstage Prints and Days Without Them

In late Edo, the crests and patterns that popular kabuki actors wore on stage became crazes for things like summer kimono (yukata). For audiences, deciding what to wear to the theater was part of the fun.

It’s like wearing your oshi’s color to a live show today. From outfits inspired by a favorite actor, to pictures of life backstage, to stories read in books, let’s trace the everyday life of Edo fans.

1. Wearing the Same Pattern as Your Oshi: Danjuro’s “Kamawanu”

A picture of a sickle, a round ring, and the hiragana “nu.” Say the three aloud in a row and you get “kamawanu.”

It’s a puzzle of a pattern that swaps words for pictures. Ichikawa Danjuro VII is said to have used it on a stage costume, and it became a craze. A pattern built from the “Mimasu,” the crest of the Danjuro family, was also used on summer kimono and other items. National Diet Library, “Glamorous Oshi: Kabuki Actors” (in Japanese)

1. 01A sickleRead "kama"
2. 02A ringRead "wa"
3. 03The letter nuHiragana "nu"
4. 04Say it aloudKamawanu

Kamawanu is a rebus, a word spelled out in pictures and one letter.

What looks like a stylish pattern ties back to one particular actor once you know its origin, and that is a fun only those in the know can share.

Today, it’s like working your oshi’s color or a work’s motif into clothes and accessories. You don’t need a name or a face in big letters; you know whom it means, and someone who shares your oshi might spot it too.

The stage set off trends in costumes, hairstyles and ornaments, and the borrowing of actors’ looks spread beyond the theater. Japan Arts Council, “Kabuki and Lifestyle” (in Japanese)

2. I Want to See My Oshi Backstage, Too: Nishiki-e of the Dressing Room

Once you love watching someone play a role, you start to wonder about the person behind it. How do they get ready before going on stage?

Late Edo also had nishiki-e prints of actors’ dressing rooms. Sakai-cho Nakamura-za Gakuya no Zu (1813) shows a dressing room before a program begins. National Diet Library’s introduction of nishiki-e depicting dressing rooms (in Japanese)

You want to see expressions your oshi doesn’t show on stage, and to watch them get ready. It’s the same feeling as enjoying behind-the-scenes photos and videos today. A dressing-room print isn’t footage of backstage as it was. Through the artist’s eye, it let you enjoy a scene you couldn’t see from the audience.

On the body

Patterns

• Kamawanu and Mimasu designs
• Worn to the theater

On the wall

Backstage prints

• Dressing-room scenes
• Bare faces and rehearsals

In the hand

Uchiwa fans

• Actors and cats by Kuniyoshi
• Everyday goods

Actor popularity showed up in clothes, pictures and tools of daily life.

Interest in actors’ true faces and dressing rooms spread to picture books as well. Yakusha Natsu no Fuji, published by Katsukawa Shunsho in 1780, is a picture book showing actors’ bare faces with the white makeup wiped off. Natsu no Fuji of 1827 also includes scenes of rehearsal and backstage. The wish to know how a favorite actor looked in everyday life supported such pictures. Ritsumeikan University Art Research Center, “Actor Picture Books of Everyday Appearances” (in Japanese)

Pictures of actors also appeared on round fans (uchiwa). The fan pictures by Utagawa Kuniyoshi that the Ota Memorial Museum of Art presents cover many subjects, including kabuki actors and cats. Ota Memorial Museum of Art, “Kuniyoshi’s Fan Prints” (in Japanese)

Not something to hang up and admire, but a fan for hot days with your oshi’s image on it. As with oshi goods today, an actor’s popularity seeped into the pleasure of choosing everyday tools.

3. Borrowing the Next Chapter of Your Oshi’s Story: Edo’s Lending Libraries

Alongside the pleasure of going to the theater, the pleasure of reading at home was growing.

Edo had a wide range of reading: picture-heavy books, funny books, romances, long stories. Books cost money, so what linked works and readers was the kashihon-ya, the lending library, where you paid to borrow.

According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Library, Edo had as many as 656 lending libraries in 1808. The library also presents Nanso Satomi Hakkenden (The Eight Dogs of the Satomi), published from 1814 to 1842. Tokyo Metropolitan Library, “Edo’s Bookshops” (in Japanese) This long tale was so popular that it was staged in kabuki and puppet theater before it was even finished. Ritsumeikan University Art Research Center, “Nanso Satomi Hakkenden (yomihon)” (in Japanese)

656

Lending libraries in Edo in 1808

1814-1842

Years Hakkenden was published

Renting was a common way to follow a long story.

Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Library (in Japanese)

What happens next to the character you love? If you wanted to follow the story, you didn’t have to buy the whole book; you could pay to borrow it. It works like renting manga today, and unlike a subscription that lets you read anything for a flat fee.

In the Heian-period Sarashina Diary, connections with people who owned books mattered; Edo had a business that lent them out. The reading is the same, but how you got the book had changed.

4. Can’t Meet Your Oshi on the Usual Stage: Danjuro’s Banishment from Edo

But the pleasures did not only grow. In 1842, Danjuro VII was banished from Edo.

Behind it were the Tenpo Reforms, in which the shogunate cracked down hard on luxury. Popular actors were among the targets, and Danjuro was punished and had to leave Edo. Naritaya official site, Danjuro VII (in Japanese)

The oshi you had been watching on your local stage goes off to a faraway land. For Edo audiences, Danjuro’s banishment also meant losing the place where they could go to see him.

After leaving Edo, Danjuro kept appearing on stages in Osaka, Kyoto and elsewhere. He was pardoned in 1849 and returned to Edo the following year. Naritaya’s short biography (in Japanese)

But for Edo audiences, going all the way to Osaka or Kyoto to see him was not easy. Travel in the Edo period was mostly on foot, and Japan’s first railway opened only in 1872. East Japan Railway Culture Foundation, “The Tokaido: Edo Travel and Modern Travel” (in Japanese)

There was no television or internet, and no way to watch a faraway performance on video. You could look at an actor print, but to enjoy Danjuro’s voice and movements, you had to go where he stood on stage.

Fans who want to watch and actors who want to perform, yet the usual stage is closed: it recalls the pandemic. In 2020, performances were canceled at venues like the Kabuki-za to prevent the spread of infection. A shogunate punishment and infection control are different reasons, but in both, audiences could no longer see their oshi at the venue. Shochiku, notice of 2020 performance cancellations (in Japanese)

1. 1842Banished from EdoUnder the Tenpo Reforms
2. 1842-1849Stages elsewhereOsaka, Kyoto and beyond
3. 1849PardonedBan lifted
4. 1850Back in EdoHe returns the next year
5. 1872First railwayTravel becomes easier

Fans could keep the prints, but the live stage was elsewhere.

The pleasures of gazing at actor prints or wearing your oshi’s pattern remain on days you can’t meet them. Even so, a day you can see them perform in front of you is special. Trace late Edo oshi-katsu and you see both time spent feeling someone you love in daily life and time spent meeting them on stage.

Timeline of Oshi-Katsu in Late Edo

Even as the pleasures spread to clothing, pictures and books, the theater also faced crackdowns. You can follow the changes in life around one’s oshi in date order.

1. 1794-95Toshusai Sharaku leaves about 145 works in about 10 monthsMedia
2. 1808Edo has 656 book-lending shops with over 100,000 customersMedia
3. 1811Raiden Tameemon retires with a career record of 254 wins and 10 lossesSumo
4. 1840"Kanjincho" at the Kawarazakiza, with Kawatake Mokuami as assistantTheater
5. 1841-43The Tenpo Reforms make entertainment of all kinds a target of crackdownsSociety
6. 1842The seventh Danjuro is banished from within ten ri of EdoTheater
7. 1842Edo's yose halls plunge from 211 to 15Media
8. 1842Actor prints and beauty prints are banned, and Kuniyoshi responds with riddle picturesMedia
9. 1842-43The three Edo theaters are moved to Saruwaka-cho in AsakusaTheater
10. 1852The mitate banzuke "Edomae Okabayaki" is published, ranking 205 eel restaurantsBusiness
11. 1854The eighth Danjuro dies in Osaka, and memorial prints are issued in large numbersTheater
12. 1854-60During the Ansei years, Edo's yose halls grow to 392Media

Performing Arts and Trend Words of Late Edo

Omukou, the call shouted to actors, shini-e, the print that remembers a dead actor, and kamawanu on clothing. Feelings for one’s oshi showed up in voices, pictures and outfits.

Omuko (the "far side")

Named for the cheap seats at the back of the second floor, it refers to audience members who shout calls to actors, and to those calls

Shini-e (memorial prints)

Memorial woodblock prints issued on an actor's death. They carried the posthumous Buddhist name and date of death

Kamawanu ("I don't care")

A riddle pattern the seventh Ichikawa Danjuro used on costumes. It reads as a sickle, a ring and "nu"

Kikugoro koshi (Kikugoro lattice)

A riddle pattern devised by the third Onoe Kikugoro. A lattice and letters spell "Kikugoro"

Mitate banzuke (parody rankings)

A single-sheet print that borrows the form of sumo rankings to rank things

Some clothing patterns replaced an actor’s name with pictures or letters. The hanji-moyo in the diagram are patterns that read like that kind of riddle.

Next we move to an age of enjoying not only the figures you saw but the voices you heard, again and again. In Oshi-Katsu Chronicle: Meiji Period, we trace the fever for girl gidayu performers and the arrival of the phonograph.

References

• National Diet Library, “Glamorous Oshi: Kabuki Actors” (in Japanese)
• Japan Arts Council, “Fans and Media” (Kabuki and Lifestyle) (in Japanese)
• Ritsumeikan University Art Research Center, “2026 AVF Kabuki and Media,” Actor Picture Books of Everyday Appearances (in Japanese)
• Ota Memorial Museum of Art, “Kuniyoshi’s Fan Prints” (in Japanese)
• Tokyo Metropolitan Library, “Edo’s Bookshops” (in Japanese)
• Ritsumeikan University Art Research Center, “2026 AVF Kabuki and Media,” Nanso Satomi Hakkenden (yomihon) (in Japanese)
• Naritaya official site, “Ichikawa Danjuro VII” (in Japanese)
• East Japan Railway Culture Foundation, “The Tokaido: Edo Travel and Modern Travel” (in Japanese)
• Shochiku, Kabuki Bito, “Notice on partial performance cancellations in response to COVID-19” (2020) (in Japanese)