How many wig craftsmen are there in kabuki?

To be straightforward: this question cannot be answered with a number, because no official count of practitioners can be confirmed. But considering why it cannot tells you something about the nature of the work.

First, the work divides in two: the katsura-shi, who builds the wig from the metal base to the hair drawn through it, and the tokoyama, who dresses it for the role and tends it through a run. Neither has much demand outside kabuki, so the market itself is small. As a result the craft is said to be concentrated in a few specialist houses in Tokyo and Kansai. Counted as firms the number is very limited, and artisans are raised inside them.

Competence takes years. Consider only the hammering of a base to fit an actor's head: every head differs, and a wig that does not fit cannot go on stage. The labour of drawing the hair through is enormous. The tokoyama, for his part, must know the topknot of every role in every play, and through a run repair it daily so that it lasts to the closing day. None of this passes in writing; it is learned on the floor. That no firm number can be given is thus the other face of how rare the craft is. Raising successors is bound up directly with handing down kabuki itself, and preservation bodies such as the Traditional Kabuki Preservation Society are said to run programmes to that end.