ぶっ返り

In bukkaeri ("flipping over"), basting threads at the shoulders are pulled so that the upper half of the costume falls and folds down over the waist—becoming part of the lower garment—while a hidden costume emerges above. It is the device of the miarawashi, the moment a character's concealed nature is revealed.

The transformation lands together with changes in makeup and music, delivering with visceral force the instant a seeming ally shows villainy, or a human takes on divine or demonic form. Where hikinuki changes a scene's colour, bukkaeri overturns a character's inner truth.

Another stage famed for its bukkaeri is the dance drama Momijigari, said to have been first performed in 1887. The lovely Princess Sarashina, dancing gracefully at a maple-viewing banquet on Mount Togakushi, is in truth a demoness of the mountain—at the moment of revelation her costume flips, and the willowy princess becomes a fearsome ogress in a breath. Ichikawa Danjūrō IX is said to have created the role, and the greater the gulf between princess and demon, the more electrifying the device.

For the Ichikawa Sōke, the celebrated example closes Narukami of the Kabuki Jūhachiban: betrayed and blazing with fury, the priest Narukami reveals his true nature in a bukkaeri—one of the most electrifying uses of the device, handed down with the Sōke's stage.