For all its futurism, Japanese entertainment never forgets the stage. (loud, colorful, all-male historical melodrama) still sells out Tokyo’s Kabukiza theater. Noh (slow, masked, ghostly) is the opposite: minimalist horror. Rakugo is just a man kneeling on a cushion, telling a 20-minute comedic story with only a fan and a handkerchief—and it sells out arenas.
lived a double life. By day, he was a salaryman, a cog in the disciplined machine of Japanese business culture