The Water Wheel Puppet Theater and Fairy Tale Streets of Chiran

It’s a sweltering summer in Kagoshima, but I endure the heat so I can explore Chiran’s historic samurai village. The thoroughfare of immaculate zen gardens, private estates, and tea houses was once the property of Japanese warriors, or bushi, who provided protection to locals and grew green tea for profits. 

The quiet streets, with their stone fences and Edo-era homes, lack telephone wires, electrical lights, or any fixtures from our modern age. The neighborhood is exquisitely preserved and remains like a doorway into the country's past. 

During World War II, Chiran housed one of Japan's largest airfields, where over 1,000 kamikaze pilots gave their lives to the Imperial Japanese Army. The town recognizes this tragic history with an incredible museum and citywide memorials that champion peace and commemorate the lives lost. Stone obelisks, each dedicated to a kamikaze pilot, line the town's main street where a stream flows alongside laundry mats, suburban homes, and convenience stores. Koi fish peck at the surface as tiny water wheels revolve with quiet perseverance. Reaching above Japanese pines, a watermill grinds wheat flour into udon for hungry locals at a family restaurant. 

With its spellbinding samurai district and magnificent natural landscape, Chiran is like a fairy tale. I'm even more certain of this as I visit Toyotamahime shrine, where an annual puppet show materializes out of the magic of Edo era mechanics and the flow of Chiran's river.

Walking down the narrow steps into Chiran's Water Wheel Karakuri Ningyo Theater, I feel like I am crawling inside the interior of a cuckoo clock. A tiny toy boat glides above my head from a wooden chain as I shimmy through a wall of hand-carved gears and oscillating cloth strings. Through a window I can see the water wheel faithfully spinning outside, setting thousands of pulleys, gears, and ropes into synchronized motion. Underneath the stage, with the creaking sound of do-it-yourself machinery, I have the sense that the entire theater is inching forward across the Pacific. It's like the bilge of a steamboat or a lost contraption in Willy Wonka's factory. 

Above my head, there's a war breaking out. This year's show is a reenactment of The Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, where Kojiro shoots his legendary bow and arrow, samurai clash, and an anthropomorphized octopus happily swings his tentacles to prerecorded music. 

The last time Chiran's Water Wheel Karakuri Ningyo Theater performed this production was in 2005. They have a repertoire of 11 shows and present just one a year during the second week of July. 

Other stories include the tale of Peach Boy, also known as Momotaro, and a fantastical myth about moon-dwelling rabbits. Each production has a script that resembles an engineer's blueprint, filled with notes, diagrams, and pictorial specifications. 

It's not just a matter of taking the puppets off the shelf and following these century-old instructions. Throughout the year the large studio on the shrine's grounds stays busy as volunteers fabricate new set pieces, puppets, and mechanisms for the summer production. 

Modifications are encouraged—as long as electricity isn't involved. Perhaps due to the scarcity of water wheel theaters, the group escapes the rules and customs usually ascribed to festival karakuri ningyo. Instead of a cohesive traditional aesthetic, the design of the show is like patchwork, stitching together 18th-century puppets, paper mâché, plastic tarps, and repurposed gardening supplies.

In 17th-century Japan, these robotic spectacles were more prevalent. Shrines across Japan housed water wheels specifically for operating automated puppet shows. A few hours north of Tokyo, Kiryu City held annual competitive festivals where robotic puppets reenacted famous legendary wartime battles without any human exertion. Today, many of the water wheels stand motionless in shrines across Japan, mementos of a bygone era of hydromechanical ingenuity. As of 2017, only two operational water wheel theaters remain, both of which are in Kagoshima: Takeda Shrine in Kaseda, and here, Toyotamahime Shrine in Chiran. 

A group of about thirty members gather around a long table, or chabudai, and pass around adzuki bean popsicles. It's almost a scorching 40 degrees Celcius, but no one is complaining. The weather forecast predicted rain, but there's not a cloud in sight. 

As a precaution, a tent covers the seating area filled with children, families, and older residents who have attended this annual performance for their entire lives. The two-minute show plays on a rotation for the whole day as townspeople snack on onigiri, pray at the shrine's altar, and catch up on the lives of their neighbors. 

During most karakuri ningyo shows in Japan, the audience waits with rapt attention for the puppet to perform its final transformation or an awe-inspiring feat. However, Chiran's performance is less demanding.  The show's repetition and partnership with the natural world create a performance that blends seamlessly into the landscape. The sound of the rotating water wheel, the squeaking gears, and the pulsating movement of a sword-wielding puppet all mingle with the everyday melody of life. It's impossible for me to tell the difference between the call of the summer's cicadas and the hum of winding springs. 

When leaving Chiran, I feel like I understand the formula behind this town's magic. It's a community that preserves its extraordinary Edo Era history, while it also acknowledges and transforms tragedy into a call for peace. It merges the natural world into everyday life. The puppet performance coordinates with nature, art, and history. Observing the small town gathering at the local shrine to watch their shared mythologies conducted by a river and 300-year-old mechanics is one of the most moving experiences I've had in Japan. Chiran's Water Wheel Theater accomplishes something remarkable. Like the city itself, it reminds us that by finding harmony with our past and the natural world, we can live in the magic of our present. 

From Takayama's Spring Festival to an Extraterrestrial Ritual: The Shared Awe of the Crowd

Last November, I made my first visit to Hida Takayama to witness the god of luck, Hotei, balance two tiny acrobats on his shoulders and dance above an audience of expectant tourists. Many of us waited for hours, fiddling with digital cameras, snacking on onigiri, and gazing up at the empty stage anticipating the entrance of one of the world's most famous Edo era robots.

Accommodating over a thousand visitors into the shrine took some serious maneuvering, highlighted by the fall out between an enraged elderly man swinging a tripod and the tripod's owner, a photographer who arrived late and jockeyed through the crowd to set-up front row center.

After police officers removed the suspect from the shrine accompanied by the gentle applause from the grandmother to my right, things settled down as we stood shoulder on top of shoulder, heads tilted skyward, waiting patiently in puppet idolization.

After Hotei's performance, the small city of Takayama, filled with Sake factories, robotic puppets, and one of the best hamburger shops in Japan, had me hooked.

Just a few months later, I hopped on a JR Expressway bus and headed back. As the driver travelled through the winding Hida mountains during a small snow storm I was excited to return without the throngs of festival goers and packed itinerary. During my second trip, I found a quiet town in the grip of winter as I carefully balanced across ice-covered sidewalks to cozy-up in the karakuri ningyo cultural archives belly full of Hida beef.

My third visit to Takayama was three months later in April during Sanno Matsuri. Takayama's fall and spring festivals are both enormous celebrations, each with their own ensemble of elaborate floats, or yatai. They each attract thousands of visitors from across the world, filling the streets with 18 foot floats adorned in glowing lanterns, dancing teenagers manipulating wooden lion heads, and a contagious chaotic euphoria.

This year, for the first time in Takayama's history, an additional festival is scheduled in May to celebrate the designation of the yatai as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Treasure. The ten yatai from the fall festival, Hachiman Matsuri, will wake from their hibernation, decamp from their garages, and roam the streets of Takayama at the same time as the thirteen yatai of Sanno Matsuri. It's hard to believe, but this event will attract even more people than the annual festivals, which already feel beyond capacity.

To navigate through Takayama's main street during a matsuri means relinquishing all autonomy and giving-in to the dense tussle of the crowd. As someone who tends to avoid any event with more people than a weekly book-club meeting, I am bewildered by those who willingly attend overcrowded events, from pop-star studded concerts to professional sports games.

The next morning the three yatai with karakuri ningyo travelled over Takayama's famous Nakabashi bridge and met at the city center.

Caked in sunscreen, I spent hours scoping out a spot near a roasted rice ball vendor, Jinya Dango. It was just as crowded as the previous evening, but as the yatai arrived and the puppets emerged, we relaxed into a pleasant anticipation.

Photograph by William F. Condee

As the February snow thaws from Gifu Prefecture, Sanno Matsuri brings forth three puppets that embody the essence of spring's arrival - transformation. With the opening of a mysterious box, a young boy transformed into an old man, an angry dragon burst from a cage, and a fan-dancing woman mutated into a wild lion. With each transformation, the crowd gasped in unison. Similar to my experience in the fall, the karakuri ningyo are some of the best in Japan.

On the second day of Sanno Matsuri, the procession of yatai was cancelled due to rain. However, the karakuri ningyo puppeteers agreed to perform inside the yatai garages. I made my way through the historic streets of the east district to watch one of the performances.

In a narrow alley, surrounded by only a hundred or so spectators, I watched the same performance as the previous afternoon. The show is based on a Japanese tale about a young boy who welcomes a drunk old man into his home, suspects him of being a dragon, locks him inside of a box, and drops him off near the Japanese sea. Filled with vengeful rage, the old man transforms into a dragon and breaks from the boy's makeshift cage. The two puppets are skillfully operated by 32 strings running through the the extended stage, or toi track, by six puppeteers hidden underneath. 

Even though I knew what to expect, I couldn't help but join in with the collective gasp as the dragon burst forth and launched confetti into the air. Afterwards, I thought about the previous morning when this same moment of wonder was shared amongst thousands. Despite having spent the last twenty-four hours begrudging my fight through the crowds, I missed sharing this show with the enormous mass of visitors. Even though these performances are for the gods, there's something about reacting to transformations with thousands that makes them feel like a mystical event.

Takayama's karakuri ningyo performs the impossible - it unites crowds of strangers into one shared moment of awe. I left the garage with a newfound empathy for those who enjoy the thrill of attending a World Series.

A few weeks later I'm in the hometown of Mt. Fuji, where the theater director Kuro Tanino premiered a new work, Moon, at the Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Last year I wrote about Tanino's production Avidya: No Lights Inn, and I spent the winter months of 2017 interning with his company, Niwa Gekidan Penino, as they remounted the production Darkmaster at Komaba Agora Theater in Tokyo. Now in Shizuoka, I found Tanino skipping the conventional stage for an environmental experience that transformed the city's famous open air theater into an extrasolar planet complete with a cast of five little people in spacesuits and a make-shift moon-landing set reminiscent of Tom Sach's Space Program.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI.
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

Each show welcomed a substantial audience of about four hundred as they made their way through the performing arts park towards a massive collection of astronaut helmets. Adorned in these stellar costumes, the enormous crowd followed the cast through the woods, collected geometric sculptures, and assisted in the creation of a celestial monument at the peak of the massive outdoor theater.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI. 
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

Mame Yamada, who also played the lead in Avidya: No Lights Inn, sat at the monument's apex as hundreds of spectators stared up at his tiny figure with anticipation. Towering above, with his long hair, short stature, and hypnotizing movements, Mame-san felt like a space-age deity or a living version of Takayama's mystical puppets.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI. 
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

The enormous mass of space helmets, continually intensified the stage images. By interacting with other audience members, transforming the environment, and staring reverently skyward at a three foot astronaut standing on a geometric shrine, Moon felt more more like a extraterrestrial matsuri than experimental theater. 

There are many moments of awe-inspiring spectacle in the performance, including a dance scene with music played solely from a collection of amplified Gamboys. With an enormous float designed by German theatre artist Caspar Pichner, the event culminated with the transformation of the outdoor theater into a grand celestial view. As if watching Earth rise from the surface of the moon, the entire audience of space-helmet clad visitors quietly took in the stage.

Photograph by Chiye NAMEGAI. 
Shizuoka World Theatre Festival. Kuro Tanino's Moon. 2017. 

Takayama matsuri and Tanino's Moon are two rituals developed centuries apart. They don't ask us to identify with their characters, but create an environment where we identify with each other. During both experiences, I recognized my shared impulses with other audience members, and entered into a sort of group consciousness often overlooked in the darkness of a conventional theater seat.

In the performance of Moon I attended in Shizuoka, the experience ended with an awesome but somber image - the Earth is an unsettling foggy tint, no longer inhabitable, void of its natural green and blue wonder. Yet, it's still an uplifting conclusion. The audience emerged from the other side, together, looking down at the Earth's surface in a shared silent stupor. We've learned how to be with each other.

For more information regarding Kuro Tanino and Niwa Gekidan Penino: http://niwagekidan.org/english

Kiryu Karakuri Ningyo Theater & a Miniature Railroad in Pittsburgh

When I moved to Pittsburgh in 2011, I spent two years surrounded by one of the largest handmade miniature railroad displays in the Northeast. The Miniature Railroad and Village at The Carnegie Science Center began in the basement of Brookvsville native Charles Bowdish in the 1920s. Today, the 2500 square foot displays features handcrafted trees, sweeping foam-carved mountains, and tiny buildings illustrating Western Pennsylvania during the early 20th century. The display boasts a miniature model of Fallingwater constructed from limestone excavated from the actual site and a to-scale reconstruction of Forbes Field intact with a crowd fabricated from thousands of painted Q-tips.

From the Miniature Railroad and Village Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/MiniatureRailroadVillage/

However, despite the craft and artistry of these hand-built models, the biggest attraction at the miniature railroad are the trains. Kids will spend hours racing the speeding engines through the tiny streets or wait with fevered anticipation for the trains to chug out of the tunnels over and over and over again.

From the Carnegie Science Center Website 
http://www.carnegiesciencecenter.org/

During my time at the train display, my duties included assisting in the construction of models, train upkeep, and conducting tours for visitors. However, I spent most of my days in conversation with my co-workers: miniature train enthusiasts. These were life-long Pittsburghers, now in their 70s and 80s, who as young boys were once enamored with the roar of the Pennsylvania Railroad, transistor radios, and rector sets. Now in retirement, they returned to this childhood fascination, spending two days a week at the miniature village, a place where they could live amongst mechanical ingenuity and play.Like the youthful visitors that surrounded them, the volunteers devoted hours to the trains, tinkering with the Pacific Steam or cleaning the wheels on the Sante Fe Diesel.

Don Leech. Miniature Railroad Engineer.
From the Miniature Railroad and Village Facebook page. 
https://www.facebook.com/MiniatureRailroadVillage/

Last year, I spent one week in Kiryu City, two hours north of Tokyo, at one of Japan's only brick and mortar karakuri ningyo theaters. The group is made up of local retirees, and upon walking into their workshop filled with repurposed toys, tangled monofilament, and half-finished contraptions, it was if I stepped into a parallel universe. I was back at the railroad.

During the first day of my visit, one of the volunteers, Ishige, showed me around the theater’s fabrication shop. He had been fiddling with a new way of mechanizing a miniature ship so that it crossed the stage with wave-like oscillation. He had repurposed a children's push toy, refitting its mechanical skeleton into a pulley system of monofilament and plywood. Later, he showed off his collection of LEDs, eager to wire the lights inside interiors of miniature dioramas. At Kiryu Karakuri Ningyo Theater, craft wood, 9-volt batteries, and abandoned toys are in high-demand.

I was surprised by the theater’s use of contemporary materials and modifications, a rarity in traditional ningyo. However, Kiryu's practice grew without the strict delineation between puppeteer, builder, and musician that is prevalent in other areas. After World War II, the city's mechanical puppetry ceased for almost half a century due to economic uncertainty. Today, the group views revision as an alternative to being forgotten.

The city’s tradition dates back two hundred years at the city's Tenmangu Shrine. Before establishing a physical theater space, Kiryu's karakuri ningyo was presented outdoors as part of Tenmangu Matsuri. During this festival, six districts performed mechanical puppet shows for thousands of visitors. These spectacles were often miniature reenactments of historic samurai battles and Japanese myths.

Instead of traveling dashi, these puppet shows took place on wooden stages framed by embroidered curtains. The curtains, like the majestic floats of Japan’s matsuri, were ornamental masterpieces that showcased Japan’s finest textiles. Kiryu was once a hub of fashion, and local textile manufacturers sponsored the puppet troupes in exchange for utilizing the curtains to market their finest work. 

These curtains framed detailed miniature landscapes that were just as eye catching as the puppets. Each year puppet companies created new sets, capturing sakura trees, mountains, and Japan’s iconic castles. Kiryu’s Tennmangu Matsuri was a convergence of art, industry, mechanical ingenuity, and, through the magic of Edo Era hydropower, nature.

Unlike other karakuri ningyo performances, where puppets are manipulated from below through a series of strings and rods, many of the performances at Tennmangu shrine were entirely mechanized. Boats set sail, wooden swords were wielded, and samurai committed seppuku through a series of automated springs, gears, and pulleys set in motion by the flowing Kiryu River and waterwheel technology. 

Although it no longer energizes these automated performances, the waterwheel still remains. Today, only one Waterwheel theater still operates, the Chiran Waterwheel Theater in Kyushu. Chiran activates this theater once a year in early July. Luckily, Kiryu Karakuri Ningyo Theater is opened year round. In 1999, it took up new residence at Yano Warehouse, an abandoned soy sauce factory that has reemerged as a hip haven that hosts a craft market, art gallery, and movie premieres.

Inside Kiryu Karakuri Ningyo Theatre there are three waist-high stages about 12 feet long. There are no seats, except for a few folding chairs for the volunteers. The audience stands in the center of the room, rotating between the three stages for each performance.

The house lights are controlled by a volunteer who stands diligently at a light switch. Before the show starts, a puppeteer pokes his head out of the curtain to cue the elderly light operator with a nod. During a few of the performances, he falls asleep, and it often falls on me, or one of the audience members, to politely wake him up to dim the lights.

The week I spent in Kiryu City, the theater did something they’ve never done before - they performed their entire repertoire in one day. This meant they had to strike and remount two of the stages after lunch, and prepare the new shows for the next audience by 1pm. Around bento boxes, pencils, and printed schedules, the volunteers eagerly planed this transition, assigning jobs and discussing possible conflicts.

When the day arrived, the turnout was not what I expected. Only about three people came for the first half of this mechanical puppet marathon. However, despite the lack of crowds, we quickly performed the transitional duties with gusto.

During the second half of the day, some of the mechanisms malfunctioned during a performance. A samurai was supposed to throw a rope over the wall of a castle - however, the rope kept getting tangled on the toss. It’s certainly not a pivotal moment of the show, but the puppeteers stopped the performance, stepped out from the wings, and surrounded the figure. The audience looked a bit bewildered as the performers reset the puppet and attempted the miniature feat once again. The rope didn’t make it over the castle wall. Once again, the show was stopped and the rope toss is re-attempted. When it was finally successful, there was an excited applause - not from the audience, but from the volunteers who looked at each other with joyful victory.

While the audience exited, leaving a few hundred yen in a donation box, the volunteers returned to the puppets, discussing the new ways of activating the rope-toss mechanism in a flurry of excited voices.

Unlike traditional karakuri ningyo that binds communities to deeply rooted traditions, Kiryu illustrates the puppet’s ability to give life to its manipulators. Like the volunteers on the miniature railroad, the puppeteers at Kiryu Karakuri Ningyo Theater growing old while reigniting the curiosity that infused their youth. Keeping this flame fueled is a magic act, one performed by modifying tradition with some wood glue, monofilament, and discarded children's toys.

Puppet Island

After a short bicycle ride from Sanjō Ōmidō Hachiman shrine, I am standing at the entrance of a graveyard. There's no iron gate, stone markers or memorial plaques, only a winding camphor tree caught between the fall and winter season. With overgrown plants and wild daffodils, the cemetery feels a bit neglected - perhaps due to its inhabits. Six feet below are the remains of puppets, with wooden heads carved from cypress and tiny fingers hinged with whale bone, buried by puppeteers searching for a final resting place for their sacred figures beyond repair.

Sanjō Ōmidō Hachiman Shrine in Southern Awaji is the birthplace of the region's puppet traditions, where centuries earlier Shinto priests manipulated puppets to appease the god Ebisu and grant good fortune for the rural island dwellers.

As I mentioned in my previous entry, these puppeteers eventually teamed up with traveling storytellers, morphing their performances from religious ceremony into itinerant entertainment. They were also notoriously grunge, part of a lower class that embraced a bohemian lifestyle. Shunned from society, puppeteers found their home amongst the gamblers, thieves, and prostitutes. 

And here, in the Sanjō neighborhood of Awaji, was the center of it. But today the town is frightfully quiet, caught in an economic slump that has taken a toll on village life.

Like the puppets underfoot, the history of Ōmidō Shrine is concealed - but just 15 kilometers down the idle highway, past a McDonalds and kiddy park, there's a different story still unfolding.

Hovering above Awaji's Fukura Bay, the puppet theater looks like a charcoal-colored Millennium Falcon - a planetary visitor surrounded by abandoned storefronts, a fish market, and a Family Mart.

Awaji Ningyo Za (Awaji Puppet Theater) was previously located a short walk from the Sanjō Ōmidō Hachiman shrine. However, in 2012 it was relocated about ten miles south in the tourist-friendly Fukura Bay.

Inside, the performance hall is an air-conditioned memorial to the original theater. The proscenium is embellished in fragments from the Sanjō theater’s roof, while the rubble is preserved in rocky details along the interior walls. In the rear, glass cases showcase 16th century puppets and original hand-painted panels from fusuma karakuri performances.

Japanese lanterns line the perimeter and audiences sit in professionally-crafted bamboo benches. The design attempts to summon its rural island roots, but with the enormous embroidered curtain, well-crafted aesthetic, and gift shop in the lobby, it can't help but feel wonderfully artificial - like Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room. Instead of a Dole Whip, audience members are encouraged to purchase Awaji cookies branded with the face of everyone's favorite puppet god, Ebisu.

On a typical day, bucket hats fill the audience as many visitors arrive via bus tours geared towards regional retirees. There are typically three to five performances a day, each made up of three acts: a comedic ritual with the god Ebisu, an excerpt from a classical drama, and a performance of Dogugaeshi (fusuma karakuri). 

At first, this mash-up of day trip attraction and Edo Era tradition was difficult to reckon with. Was I actually experiencing traditional Awaji puppet theater? Was the theater's modernization and its condensed production style doing more harm than good? However, after spending a month in Fukura, observing rehearsals, talking to locals, and hanging out backstage, I came to realize that Awaji Ningyo Za is a traditional puppet theater with tourist attraction frills. These modern adjustments are masks worn to survive in the 21st century.

The Awaji troupe operates under a rigid training and rehearsal regime. The lead puppeteers, musicians, and narrators train for over twenty years. In December, the lead shamisen player, Tsuruzawa Tomoj, passed away. She had been performing for over 90 years. She was 103.

One of my favorite performances I’ve seen in Japan is Awaji Ningyo Za’s excerpt from Datemusume koi no higanoko. Confronting her own death to save the life of her lover, a young woman wildly dances across the stage as her long black strands deliriously fly around her face. The performance starts out graceful, but transforms into something more grotesque and chaotic. At the end of the scene, hair unruly, she climbs a bell tour, the puppeteers holding her arms from the inside. After intentional stumbles, she is thrown over the top of the tower, almost haphazardly. The scene is melodramatic and showcases the puppet’s feral qualities. This is one of the main differences between Awaji ningyo and Bunraku - its a bit more untamed. While Bunraku appealed (and appeals) to a more sophisticated crowd, Awaji was a tradition primarily performed for commoners. Even with the hawking of ningyo cookies, Awaji Ningyo Za still manages to preserve this wild quality.

Each show at Awaji Ningyo Za ends with a six minute performance of Dogugaeshi, also known as fusuma karakuri. Dogugaeshi is a form of rural performance where sliding hand-painted panels move in and out of a proscenium, delving deeper and deeper through an illustrative portal. I plan to write much more on Dogugaeshi in April. 

While in Awaji, I spend my nights at rehearsals as the troupe prepares for a performance at Tokyo's National Theater. The show calls for over 30 puppeteers, so members of the community assist and operate secondary characters. Their manipulation is certainly not too cultivated, but this is what makes Awaji Ningyo Za so interesting - it's tightly bound in the Awaji community. It's a city center, a sort of performative town hall, for the people of Fukura. Almost all of the local schools offer shamisen and puppetry classes, and there are a dozen performances every year featuring middle and high school students. Some of the these students even go on to work at the puppet theater after graduation. At the local cafe, the barista is excited to talk about the upcoming puppet shows. At the ice cream shop, the husband and wife owners generously give me an extra scoop since I’m a puppeteer. Awaji puppeteers are everywhere, saying hello at the post office or grabbing udon with their family at the local noodle restaurant. The longer you spend in Awaji, the more you realize that puppetry plays a vital role in the city's success, both culturally and economically. 

Although much smaller, Fukura reminds me of Takarazuka, home of the Takarazuka Revue, an entire city centered around one theater. In both Fukura and Takarazuka the puppeteers and performers are like adored athletes. Like a sports team, they offer the city a sense of purpose. While walking around Fukura it's obvious that Awaji Ningyo Za has fostered a sense of community, and might be why you can't help but be met with friendly and inquisitive neighbors throughout the town. 

Returning to the Sanjō neighborhood, there sits a museum dedicated to Awaji puppetry. Inside, you'll find 16th century puppet costumes, mechanized wooden heads, and miniature models of the Edo Era’s outdoor puppet theaters. But it’s every Saturday afternoon when the spirit of Awaji puppetry is on full-display. During my time on the island, I looked forward to these weekend visits, when a group of dedicated puppet hobbyists meet to carve heads, hinge hands, and thread wigs. 

The group has been meeting for over 30 years. They are creating puppets with the same materials and zest of those puppet-makers from centuries before. 

Together, in their 70s and 80s, they still trade notes and make hand-crafted guidebooks filled with photocopied pages and handwritten instructions.

They are generous with these references, sharing them without hesitation. It’s one of the most inspiring experiences I’ve had in Japan, watching how puppetry connects this group of artisans to their ancestors, to the region, and to a history spanning half a century. 

After my days at Awaji Ningyo Za, I often stop by a small coffee shop down the street from the theatre. Here, I take notes and chat with the barista about puppetry, his family, and the best food in Awaji. The barista recounts a time, twenty-five years earlier, when the then-governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, came to Fukura Bay and stayed at the luxurious Royal Hotel, a short drive away. “He enjoyed Awaji beef," the barista recalls. 

But this also speaks to another time, when Japan was experiencing an economic boom, and Awaji’s tourism was more active, attracting the likes of up and coming charismatic American politicians. But today, the town feels like it’s in limbo. It’s either on the verge of becoming a charming tourist destination or falling deeper into the unknown. This is the theme I keep coming across traveling in rural Japan. It feels like the uncertainty of Japan’ post-bubble economy is akin to the unresolved future of rural Japan and its traditional art forms. 

But it’s Awaji Ningyo Za’s mixture of community engagement and tourist appeal that gives Fukura a fighting chance. After a month in Awaji, the Star Trekian building stops looking so out of place, and stands like a celestial beacon for the future. During my last visit at the local cafe, the barista sincerely asks me if I’ve considered buying property in Fukura. “We need more puppeteers around here”. 

To learn more about Awaji Ningyo Za, please visit their website:

http://awajiningyoza.com/introduction/en/