隈取

Kumadori is the art of painting a character's inner nature onto the face in colored lines, developed alongside the aragoto style. Red lines suggest justice, courage, and youthful vigor; blue signals villains and supernatural beings; brown is used for demons and spirits. The lines are said to stylize the swell of muscles and veins—sculpture drawn in makeup.

The name is said to come from the way the lines are blended ("taken") with the fingers rather than simply drawn. Each actor adjusts the kumadori to his own face, so the same role looks subtly different from actor to actor. Pressed onto cloth after a performance, the makeup becomes a one-of-a-kind imprint called oshiguma.

Nearly a hundred varieties of kumadori are said to exist, each finely matched to a type of role. The suji-guma worn by Kamakura Gongorō in Shibaraku signals superhuman strength and blazing anger; the mukimi-guma of Sukeroku's hero conveys youth, allure, and a keen sense of justice; the nihon-guma of the priest Narukami expresses composed, imposing power; and high-ranking archvillains wear the indigo kuge-are. Read the lines on a face, and a character's nature is revealed before a word is spoken.

Kumadori is said to have been begun by Ichikawa Danjūrō I together with the aragoto style, and it remains inseparable from the art of the Ichikawa Sōke. The red suji-guma of Shibaraku, its emblem, lives on in Danjūrō XIII's performances today.