睨み

The nirami is the act of fixing both eyes with tremendous force, as if gazing at heaven and earth at once. Related to—but distinct from—the frozen mie pose, it is regarded as a special art belonging solely to the Ichikawa Sōke (the head family of the Ichikawa Danjūrō lineage), performed not only within plays but also at ceremonial occasions such as name-succession addresses.

Since the Edo period it has been said that anyone glared at by Danjūrō will pass a year free of illness, and the nirami has long been cherished as a blessing that drives away misfortune. It is often linked to the spirit of aragoto—fierce power that subdues evil—and to the image of the deity Fudō Myōō, venerated by the family at Naritasan Shinshōji temple.

At the setsubun bean-scattering ceremony of Naritasan Shinshōji—the temple the Ichikawa Sōke has venerated for generations—the cry is "Fortune in!" alone; "Demons out!" is never spoken. Before the temple's principal deity Fudō Myōō, it is said, even wicked demons submit and repent. Not to drive evil away but to subdue it and turn it into blessing: the same spirit that has made the nirami so beloved a charm.

Danjūrō XIII carries this art today, performing the nirami at his name-succession celebrations and beyond. In 2024 he delivered it in Osaka's Dōtonbori district to pray for a production's success, two years after performing it from the heights of Tokyo Skytree—echoes of the family history in which Danjūrō II is said to have triumphed in Osaka some 280 years earlier.