If you want to understand the name

Who Danjūrō is, in five steps

Not one actor's name but a lineage of three and a half centuries. What has been handed down, step by step. About twenty minutes.

5 steps · about 20 min

What the Ichikawa Sōke is

Why the house is called Sōke and not simply the Ichikawa family — it has to do with kabuki having no iemoto.

The style held to have been created by the first Danjūrō in Genroku-era Edo, conjuring more-than-human strength. Everything starts here.

The seventh chose eighteen plays from those handed down in the house — and gave Japanese the word ohako.

From Genroku Edo to Reiwa. To follow the Danjūrō line is to follow Japan itself.

The present head, who took the name in 2022, and how he means to pass it on.