敵役

Katakiyaku are the villain roles who stand against the hero. Kabuki sorts its villains into vivid types: the kugeaku, court nobles who scheme to seize the realm; the jitsuaku, realistic evildoers; and the iroaku, handsome men with a dark heart.

The larger the villain looms, the brighter the hero shines. The row of blue-painted court villains in Shibaraku is a classic example of the type at work.

Katakiyaku, too, has stepped off the stage into everyday Japanese: to "take the katakiyaku" is to accept the thankless part of the person everyone resents. In the Edo period the word was also read tekiyaku; the reading katakiyaku is said to have settled later.

Aragoto, the house art of the Ichikawa Sōke (the head family of the Ichikawa Danjūrō lineage), is a drama of subduing evil, impossible without great villains. Uke in Shibaraku, one of the Kabuki Jūhachiban, is considered a model kugeaku, and the white-bearded Ikyū in Sukeroku is another famous katakiyaku.