花四天

Yoten originally named a distinctive costume slit at both hips; by extension it came to mean the constables and soldiers who fight in it. The hanayoten—"flower yoten"—are the most decorative kind: white costumes dyed with blossoms, red headbands and sashes, flowering branches or flowered spears in hand.

A fight with hanayoten is the furthest thing from a realistic arrest—it is stylized beauty at its purest. Surrounding the hero in showpiece dances and history plays, they adorn the stage with shifting colour and formation; their appearance in travel-dance pieces such as Michiyuki Tabiji no Hanamuko is often cited.

Besides the hanayoten there are also kuroyoten—fighters clad in black. Constables and spies in black yoten appear in scenes such as "Terakoya" of Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami, tightening moments of darkness and danger. Where the black yoten carries an air of realistic tension, the flower yoten adorns the stage with colour: a single costume hue defining a scene's whole character, in kabuki's characteristic shorthand.

Hanayoten is a word of kabuki's shared aesthetic rather than of any single house. It is the work of such surrounding roles that sets off the hero—in aragoto above all—for the picture of a kabuki fight is completed by the beauty of those who attack.