A Town where Stories are Born—To Search for the Lingering Scent of Edo, Meiji, Taisho, and Showa

Text: Ryuki Goto　　Education and Research Coordinator, College of Sociology, Rikkyo University
He was born in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1981. He completed the doctoral degree program, Graduate School of Arts, Rikkyo University. He has a doctorate in literature. His area of expertise is modern Japanese theater and literature. He jointly wrote the Akira Kamiyama version of Kosa suru Kabuki to Shingeki (Kabuki and shingeki that intersect each other) (Shinwasha) and his thesis is “Meiji Sanjunendai Kyoto Gekidan to Takayasu Gekko Koryuken – Sakura Shigure Hatsuenko” (Kyoto stage in the Meiji 30s [from 1897 to 1906] and Gekko Takayasu’s exchange area – The first consideration of acting performance) (Issue No. 212 of the History of the Performing Arts Research).

Amusement districts since the Edo period had bustled with activities by not only the large-scale stores but also the restaurants, yose (vaudeville) theaters, publishers, and tool shops. There, writers, artists, and actors stalked the streets with a swagger, and famous masterpieces that have been inherited to this day were born.

“On the hazy evening following the festival day of Doll’s Festival in spring, he released the same turban shell and hard-shell clam, and I named on the patrol officer’s note by identifying myself as his wife. The Ojizo-sama (a guardian deity of children and travelers) in Nishigashi we visited together is the marriage tie. …… If this does not work, Japan will be cloaked in darkness.”

Nihonbashi, which is a novel depicting an entertainment quarter in Nihonbashi by Kyoka Izumi, was published by Senshokan in 1914. Shinzo Katsuragi, who is a medical student, was in love with Kiyoha of Takinoya, who is a geisha girl in Himono-cho, Nihonbashi, and resembles his older sister who went missing, but Kiyoha rejected him because of her obligation to Takinoya. On the way home after giving up his feelings, when he threw away the turban shell and hard-shell clam that were offered on Hina dolls to the river from the Ichikoku-bashi Bridge and was interrogated by the patrol officer, Oko of Inabaya threw an offering into the river, just like what he did, pretended that she was his wife and helped him. It was the festival day of the Nishigashi Jizoson, which was famous for marriage ties. And here comes Oko’s line in the beginning. The two got acquainted with each other since the encounter on the bridge, but Dengo Igarashi who is called Akaguma (red bear) and Oko’s secret lover followed her-.

Seika Mayama dramatized Nihonbashi in March 1915 and Shinpa gave the first public performance at the Hongo-za Theater in Tokyo. Rokuro Kitamura played Oko and Yoho Ii played Katsuragi. Misao Kimura played Kiyoha and Keiichiro Saori played Dengo. While distinguished actors were lined up, young Shotaro Hanayagi made a request to Nishigashi Jizoson and got the role of Ochise, a geisha apprentice, and this play made him a star.

Many writers had repeatedly revised Nihonbashi and the forefathers of Shinpa had inherited, but the place the first-generation Ms. Yaeko Mizutani played Oko as her first role was a small workshop, which was held for only one day, at the Shinbashi Enbujo Theatre in 1973. Since then, she had played Oko and Kiyoha several times.

Ms. Yaeko who read Drama Nihonbashi (1917, Shunyodo), which was said to be dramatized by Kyoka, before she played the first role said, “Usually in Shinpa, casting would be adding Kiyoha to the leading roles of Oko and Katsuragi, and Dengo is a supporting role, but Mr. Kyoka’s original story is a story interwoven by a woman and a woman, and a man and a man, instead of a man and a woman who are the leading roles.” Her thoughts on Oko are particularly strong and deep.

“Oko who is freewheeling feels envious and jealous of Kiyoha who has the ideal image and shows her competitive spirit, such as she picks up all men who were dumped by Kiyoha. But at her last gasp after gulping down nitric acid and being held by Kiyoha, she died in happiness of being able to be on the same line that Kiyoha finally came down to her and is the same geisha girl and the same Edokko (born and raised in Edo). I like Oko who was like that. At that time, Kiyoha who had felt ashamed of being a geisha girl felt a sense of pride in being a geisha for the first time. The changeover in these two women’s minds was interesting.”

The strong will of the two different types of geisha girls cross each other. And the destinies of men who are tossed about by women. Ms. Yaeko reads people’s karma that Kyoka was assumed to try to depict.
“Dengo cannot cut off his obsession toward Oko and goes down. Katsuragi cannot be with the woman who made the man go down to that extent, and that is why he chooses to break up with her and becomes a Buddhist priest. It is not just about fine-sounding talk, but he wanted to depict ugly human relationships. Nihonbashi has been played as the arranged version of the novel in the Shinpa style, which extracted the parts appealing beauty to the audience. Playing Kyoka Izumi’s Nihonbashi that is not conventionally dramatized is my dream.”

I thought I wanted to walk around the town where such a story was born. Shinpa’s Nihonbashi starts from the scene on the Ichikoku-bashi Bridge. It seems to be rational to start walking around from the Ichikoku-bashi Bridge.

Because the Goto family had two mansions on both sides of the river, 5-to (a unit of capacity and is pronounced goto) and 5-to, which make 1-koku (pronounced ichikoku), the bridge was named so, which was tasteful, and while feeling a sense of affinity to it, I first visited Nishigashi Jizo-ji Temple. The current area around Yaesu 1-chome is the setting of Nihonbashi. Kyoka himself loved and was familiar with this place. Shunyodo, which is a long-established publisher, was in Kamimaki-cho (currently, Nihonbashi 3-chome), and Koyo Ozaki, who was Kyoka’s master, and other writers frequently came and went.

In the middle of the Meiji era, Kyoka had a human network of a wide variety of people who gathered in Nihonbashi. Zennosuke who is the first son of the first-generation Zenjiro Yasuda, a businessperson, was one of them (he succeeded the second-generation Zenjiro in 1921). His other name was Matsunoya. He liked kabuki, and when Takeji Miki, Ogai Mori’s younger brother and a doctor, first published the play magazine Kabuki (January 1900), he became a patron and was also a prominent personage as a book collector.

Yukihiko Yasuda, who was the fourth son of the owner of the Japanese restaurant Hyakushaku in Yoshi-cho, which was an entertainment quarter, and a painter, lived in the Oshima tsumugi weave store, which was located in shinemon-cho (currently, Nihonbashi 3-chome) and run by Naojiro, Yukihiko’s next oldest brother (he later became the fifth-generation Shichisaburo Nakamura, a kabuki actor), in the first half of the Meiji 30s (from 1897 to 1902) when he was in his teens and possessed a workshop named Shikokai (it later became Kojikai) with the disciples of Tomoto Kobori. This association later moved to a rental room near Kaji-bashi Bridge, and Koyo Ozaki wrote in his diary that he visited Yukihiko who lived in Shinemon-cho at that time with Zennosuke.

The place writers at that time frequently visited was Maruzen at Tori 3-chome (currently, Nihonbashi 2-chome). On the second floor 30 Years of Tokyo of Maruzen, there was a section that stirred their enthusiasm.
“On the second floor of Maruzen, that small and dim place, a light-skinned and happily smiling head clerk with a bad leg, inside the glass shelves covered by dust where science books, guidebooks, and literary documents are all lined up together, even so, on that second floor, there were famous books that moved Europe from time to time arrived and were lined up side by side.” (Tokyo no Sanju-nen  by Katai Tayama)

Nietzche, Ibsen, Dostyevsky, Zola, Baudelaire……. Writers were led by these foreign books gathered here and looked for books in the bookshelf. Western trends in the 19th century flew in from the second floor of Maruzen and led modernism in Japan.
Stories created by writers will be spread around the world by publishing and distributing them. Okura Shoten, which published Wagahai wa Neko dearu (I Am a Cat) by Soseki Natsume and was one of the best publishers at that time, was also located at Tori 1-chome. Nihonbashi was said to be a source of modern Japanese culture.

In 1914 when Kyoka published the novel Nihonbashi, the main store of the Mitsukoshi kimono store (currently, the Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi main store) reopened on October 1. On the same day, Yumeji Takehisa opened Minato-ya Ezoshi-ten (picture bookstore) (until 1916) in Gofuku-cho (currently Yaesu 1-chome). The store sold miscellaneous items designed by Yumeji, and there was also a gallery on the second floor.

Nihonbashi is an area where there are many long-established stores since the Edo period in a row, and one of the stores that Yumeji had deep interactions with was a Japanese paper store Haibara, which was founded in 1806. Haibara had requested original drawings and designs, such as fan painting and writing paper, for the first-class writers and artists from generation to generation, and the third-generation Naosjiro Haibara commercialized the designs by his favorite Zeshin Shibata and Kyosai Kawanabe one after another. Customers who regularly visited Haibara are too numerous to mention, such as Kaishu Katsu, Naoya Shiga, the Ogai Mori family, Kafu Nagai, Settai Komura, Kanajo Hasegawa, and others.

Among such people, Yumeji proposed to draw original drawings on woodblocks to be used for picture envelopes and bought paper to draw Japanese-style paintings at Haibara. So, he had a strong connection with Haibara. Ms. Yoko Nakamura who is Haibara’s curator said, “Haibara and Yumeji’s styles were similar.”
“Haibara had developed products aimed at making something that is world-class while incorporating modern elements and Japan’s charms at all times. On that regard, I think that modernism in the same period that Haibara and Yumeji sought matched.”

What satisfied Yumeji’s taste was the townscape of the Nihonbashi and Kyobashi areas. In his essay “Natsu no Machi wo Yuku Kokoro (“The mind that passes through the town”) (Fujingaho in August 1925), Yumeji wrote, “If you would like to try to enjoy the town in summer, you must not have the purpose or promise.” Buying silk lace underclothes at Saegusa, five packets of kogiku (kaishi, Japanese paper to be folded and tucked inside the front of one’s kimono) at Haibara, kamaboko (fish cake) at Kikuya after ordering a pair of shoes at Mitsukoshi, Norwegian sardine and Austrian butter and macaroni at Meidi-ya. Choosing a summer hat at Taya and buying a Khadi soap … if you pack your schedule like this, you cannot even leisurely enjoy ice cream.

Although the good old look of Tokyo was lost due to the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, I think Yumeji preferred the quiet Naka-dori Avenue and back streets where there are long-established stores that are not prosperous and left behind small elegant gates, rather than main streets, and enjoyed strolling and shopping as he pleased.

Haibara
Address: Tokyo Nihonbashi Tower, 2-7-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku
Tel: +81 (0)3-3272-3801
Business hours: 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Saturdays and Sundays: Until 5:30 p.m.)
Regular holidays: Public holidays

“To me, Nihonbashi is the town of department stores.”
When I strolled around by imitating what Yumeji did blindly, it brought back memories of the voice of Ms. Yaeko Mizutani. On the event of the 88th anniversary of the building of the Nihonbashi Bridge in 1999, Ms. Yaeko dressed as a geisha, rode in a rickshaw, and paraded from Mitsukoshi to Takashimaya.

Ms. Yaeko said, “I was cold because I pulled the collar of the kimono and thought, ‘Was the distance between Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya that far?’” and smiled. She found charms specific to Nihonbashi, such as a sense of exaltation created by the department stores and small old-style, long-established stores still live on in between these department stores.

In the place between Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya (the Nihonbashi store was newly built and opened in 1933) where Coredo Nihonbashi currently stands, the Shirokiya department store, which developed from a sundries store founded in 1662 (it later became the Tokyu department store, Nihonbashi branch, which closed in 1999) competed for the prosperity of business with these department stores. When Mitsukoshi formed a brass band for boys in 1909, Shirokiya had some pioneering attempts, such as Nagayo Motoori formed the Shirokiya Girls’ Brass Band in Shirokiya in 1911 and started a girls’ opera for the first time in Japan. It was two years later when Ichizo Kobayashi was inspired by this and formed the Takarazuka Chorus Group, which was the predecessor of the Takarazuka Revue Company.

Nishonbashi was also the town where alleys were bustling. Kiwaradana located in the north of Shirokiya where restaurants stood in a row was commonly known as Shokushojinmichi (narrow street to have more than enough food), and in Sanshiro by Soseki, there is a scene where Sanshiro goes to Kiwara-tei, a yose theater, to listen to the third-generation Kosan Yanagiya. The third-generation Kosan was soseki’s beloved rakugo storyteller. Hanshichi who appears in Hanshichi Torimono-cho(Detective Hanshichi’s Story) by Kido Okamoto is also said to be from Kiwaradana.

At Tori 2-chome (currently, Nihonbashi 2-chome), which is located at the south side of Tokyo Nihonbashi Tower by crossing Eitai-dori Avenue, there was an alley called Shikibu Koji because Shikibu Kushimoto, who was a doctor patronized by the shogunate government, received a mansion. Kyoka Izumi published the novel Shikibu Koji (1906) in the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, and the following preface was added to the novel: “Nihonbashi no soreniya naraeru, /Genji no chosha niya Nazorahe taru, /Chikaki koro Otowa Aoyagi no yokocho wo, /Shikibu Koji to namu iekeru” (By learning that of Nihonbashi and following the author of Genji, the alley in Otowa Aoyagi was recently called Shikibu Koji). In the Edo period, Tanehiko Ryutei who was an author of popular stories published the unfinished long novel Nisemurasaki Inaka Genji (1829-1842), which adapted The Tale of Genji and in which a woman named Ato was a storyteller, and the novel became a bestseller.

In 1816 before Tanehiko wrote Nisemurasaki Inaka Genji, Mokuami Kawatake who was a kabuki playwright and made Shoyo Tsubouchi say, “A major wholesaler of theatrical performance in Edo” gave his first cry in Sikibu Koji. His father, the fourth-generation Kanbee Echizenya was said to handle stocks of public bathhouses (goodwill of public bathhouse) as a business. Regarding the historic sites of Mokuami, Nakamise Shopping Street in Asakusa, where there is a monument of his former residence, and Honjo, where he spent his last years, are famous, but his birthplace should be known a little more.

While recalling Izayoiseishin and Sanninkichisa Tomoeno Shiranamii created by Mokuami that I recently saw at the Kabukiza Theatre (the former Kobiki-cho, Kyobashi-ku) in May, I exited Chuo-dori Avenue. In the area south of the Naka-bashi Bridge over the horiwari (waterway/Momiji-gawa River) (it was reclaimed in 1774 and became Nakabashi Hirokoji) that intersected Yaesu-dori Avenue (the former ward boundary between Nihonbashi Ward and Kyobashi Ward), the first-generation Kanzaburo Saruwaka set up the place for the Saruwaka-za (it later became Nakamura-za) Theater in 1624. This was the first theater for regular performances permitted by the shogunate government and was said to be the start of Edo kabuki. I thought there was supposed to be a monument on which its history was engraved and entered Kyobashi by trusting my memory.

Yasaburo Ikeda who was a Japanese literature scholar and who was born and grew up in Ginza (the former Kyobashi Ward) wrote that there was the order between Nihonbashi Ward and Kyobashi Ward and the former took precedence over the latter in everything in the Nihonbashi Shiki (Private Record of Nihonbashi).

“If comparing Nihonbashi and Kyobashi, Nihonbashi was superior, and in the case of Kyobashi and Tsukishima, Kyobashi was superior. These are not true now though.” The person who said so is the sixth-generation Umekichi Nakamura of the Edo houki (Edo broom) specialty store Shirokiya Denbe, which was founded in Ginza in 1830 and relocated to Kyobashi at the end of the shogunate government. Shirokiya Denbe, which opened near Takegashi, flourished with the transportation by water on the Kyobashi-gawa River and is still doing business at the same place, and Mr. Umekichi, who was born in 1929, has kept seeing Kyobashi from the Showa era to the Heisei era and is a walking dictionary who has been conducting studies on local history as well.

Shortly after the war in 1947, Nihonbashi Ward merged with Kyobashi Ward and became Chuo Ward, and the relationship of these two wards was considered to have changed. In Kyobashi, there were many large-scale stores with a long history, such as Meidi-ya, and many companies have their headquarters, such as Shimizu Corporation and Bridgestone Corporation. While such companies stood in a row along the main street, if you enter the alleys, small stores handling daily necessities for ordinary people still remain. The antique dealer Kagaya Sakichi in Nakabashi was the setting for Kinmeichiku, which is a rakugo story, and most of the tool shops that appeared in the story were said to be tool shops on Higashinaka-dori Avenue (Kotto-dori Avenue). A town where merchants and craftsmen gather. This also seems to be a characteristic of Kyobashi.

The street was said to be quiet to the extent that “When I heard the sound of the clip-clop of wooden clogs, they were all my store’s customers” (Mr. Umekichi), and when I heard about the store’s business clients, the store had many different kinds of clients.

Mr. Umekichi said, “We received an order from the house of the second-generation Kishichiro Okura of the Okura Financial Clique, and I followed my father and delivered brooms to his mansion in Koji-machi. And Mr. Kishichiro, who happened to be at home, said to me, “Sonny, you should study,” and stroked my head. This is my treasure. My father also carried brooms and went to Ms. Motoko Hani’s place who founded Jiyugakuen.”
Mr. Satoru who is the seventh generation and was listening to the story by us was surprised and told me, “Jiyugakuen is now our best customer.”

Mr. Umekichi smiled and said, “In the past, we were always working for the Kabukiza Theatre and made rental Japanese sandals with a crest of Kabukiza Theatre. We also used to sell brooms wholesale, but the main products were Japanese sandals. The payment was made by tickets, but they did not give us tickets for the popular performances that attracted customers. So, I once asked, ‘Next time, give me the good one’ but they rejected it, and we got into a fight.”

Shall I say that was the merchant’s strong will or shall I say that was the laid-back feeling of the times? An atmosphere of bygone days is created from the long-established store’s business, and it is a story woven by the town.

After buying a reasonable small broom and left the store, I hovered about the alley and encountered a plot that was the former site of Hiroshige Ando’s residence (currently, under construction). There was also a mansion said to be of Yasunobu Kano (Nakabashi Kano) who was a painter patronized by the shogunate government and one of the four kano families.

Maybe, it was because the whole area had a deep relationship with fine art, but there was the cartoonist Ippei Okamoto’s parents’ house in Minamisaya-cho (currently Kyobashi 2-chome). His father Katei Okamoto (Takejiro) was a calligrapher, and Rosanjin Kitaoji was said to be his apprentice and trained for two years from 1905. Ippei was in the same generation as Rosanjin. Later, he became hugely popular like people said, “There are some people who do not know the name of the Prime Minister but there is no one who does not know the name of Ippei Okamoto.” In 1910, which was right after he joined the Background Department of the Imperial Theatre after graduating from Tokyo Art School, he held a wedding ceremony with Kanoko through the good offices of Eisaku Wada. They spent their newly married life in his parents’ house but did not get along with the family, and he took her to Kawasaki when she was pregnant. The person who was born there was the artist Taro Okamoto.

Before I knew it, I arrived in front of the National Film Center, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (the former headquarters of Nikkatsu). I wanted to see a movie, but I was rushed by the sun going down, turned left at Kyobashi intersection where there were the headquarters of Toei (until around 1960) and Daiei (until around 1971), and found the monument The Birthplace of Edo Kabuki on the north side of the Police Museum. I should have exited onto Chuo-dori Avenue from the road in front of Shirokiya Denbe, but I went such a long way round.

Shirokiya Denbe
Address: Shiroden Building 1F, 3-9-8 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Toll-Free Phone Number: 0120-375-389　 Tel: +81 (0)3-3563-1771
Business hours: 10 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Regular holidays: Sundays and public holidays

From Kyobashi Daikongashi-dori Avenue to Sotobori-dory Avenue. I have heard that there was Tanyu Kano’s mansion (Kajibashi Kano) and Kochiba Dojo where Ryoma Sakamoto attended. I thought about the lingering scent of history and headed for the Nihonbashi River while giving a side glance at Tokyo Station.

Because of the Meiji Restoration, the Great Kanto Earthquake, and World War II, the town had been forced to constantly change.

One of the lost scenery is the Yaesu-bashi Bridge that spanned the outer moat to the current Yaesu exit of Tokyo Station located between the Kaji-bashi Bridge and the Gofuku-bashi Bridge in 1884. When people crossed the outer moat, they crossed these three bridges; however, the bridge was removed in association with the opening of Tokyo Station in 1914. When the bridge was rebuilt after the Great Kanto Earthquake (1925), the innovative and solid design by Mokutaro Kinoshita, who was a medical scientist and a poet, attracted public attention. However in 1948 while the postwar reconstruction had been conducted, because the outer moat was reclaimed, the bridge was demolished along with the dream of the poet.

At the Japanese-style restaurant Fujimura-ya, which used to be located in Himono-cho, Kukuku-kai (999 association) (because the membership fee was 9.99 yen) to gather around Kyoka Izumi was held on the 23rd day of every month. Its members were Takitaro Minakami, Ton Satomi, Mantaro Kubota, Settai Komura, Saburosuke Okada, Shutaro Miyake, and Kiyokata Kaburaki. The association was said to be held every month from May 1928 to August 1939. The Fujimura-ya was damaged and burned down during the war and reconstructed for a period of time; however, land was taken away due to the land readjustment in 1954.

There are stories of the town that were born and gone in the spirit of the time. There are stories that are born in the town. Ms. Yaeko Mizutani’s Shinpa theory is worth listening to attentively.

“Although Shinpa is said to be classic, it is the Modern Play in Meiji. It carefully depicts the livelihood of the Japanese who lived in houses built of wood and paper. The older it gets, the more we have to take good care of it, and we must tell the customers the manners, customs, and livelihood during the lost times. Newly revive the Modern Play in Meiji through the bodies of actors who are breathing in the present day. I think that is the Shimpa from now on.”

Ms. Yoko Nakamura of Haibara said, “By each store sincerely doing their jobs, people will gather in Nihonbashi. The entire town enhances Nihonbashi’s credibility and creates the brand. That attitude has been inherited from the past.” Products created by the long-established stores are also the important items that tell the stories of lost times to the next generation.

I repeatedly remember the words of Ms. Yaeko who said, “When I see young people wearing kimono that they are not used to wearing and carrying the similar kinchaku (drawstring bag) in a fireworks display or a festival, it makes me think that everyone wants to try to act Japanese. Then I feel that Shinpa can still live. Bringing down the real things as much as possible in a fictional world of the stage is our job.”

I passed the former site of Yumeji’s Minato-ya where the memorial monument was erected under the Shingofukubashi Building and will soon return to the Ichikoku-bashi Bridge. The stone of Mayoigo no Shirube (guide for missing children) located at the south end of the bridge was erected by the people in Nishigashi-cho in 1857 because so many children went missing in the areas around the amusement district. When I arrived at the final destination after walking around the town like a missing child for one day, the sky suddenly got dark.
“Utsukushiki kyoka no yoru to narinikeri Ichikoku-bashi ni haru no amefuri” (“It becomes night with flowers beautifully reflected in a mirror, and the spring rain falls on the Ichikoku-bashi Bridge”) (Isamu Yoshii)

It is the beginning of summer. The smell of rain that tells the changing of the season is wafting. If I close my eyes, utsukushiki kyoka no yoru gets close to me through the expressway on the bridge.

Reprinted from Tokyo-jin July 2016 extra edition