押戻し

Oshimodoshi ("pushing back") is a set-piece—and the hero role that performs it—in which a raging spirit trying to storm down the hanamichi is pushed back by an aragoto champion, often wielding a great stalk of green bamboo. It typically caps plays such as Narukami or the Dōjōji dance dramas.

Handed down as a form rather than a stand-alone story, it is counted among the Kabuki Jūhachiban. With its bold striped makeup and enormous sword, it distills the essence of aragoto: strength as a kind of prayer that subdues evil.

The classic chance to see the form today is a staging of the dance drama Kyōganoko Musume Dōjōji with its oshimodoshi finale. Just as the shirabyōshi dancer Hanako—transformed by obsessive love into a serpent spirit—tries to storm down the hanamichi, the champion Ōdate Samagorō bars her way with a great stalk of green bamboo and pushes her back. A masterpiece of onnagata dance meets the world of aragoto in its closing moments.

The Kabuki Jūhachiban, which includes Oshimodoshi, are the plays the Ichikawa Sōke designated as its house art. In this form—subduing evil with heroic force—the spirit of the Sōke's aragoto survives at its purest.