ABSTRACT
The puppet play is another of the artistic productions of the people that spouted, grew up, and attained maturity nurtured by the encouragement and support of the masses in the halcyon days of the peaceful Tokugawa period. As nishikie, the world-famous colour prints, was the pride of the people of Yedo, so was the puppet play for Osaka folks. Evidently the commercial soil of “the Manchester of Japan ” afforded it a congenial bed. However, what made the puppet play a wonderful culture production was its happy combination with the samisen and joruri — two of the masterworks the artistic and literary genius of the people produced in the Tokugawa period. It was at the height of its prosperity during the 21 years from 1727 to 1747, when the two rival puppet play-houses—Takemoto-za and Toyotake-za—were maintaining their vigorous existence in Osaka. This was the golden age of the puppet play, and the legitimate play, kabuki, another brilliant art product of the Tokugawa period, was totally eclipsed for a time, the puppet play proving itself the leading attraction in the entertainment world. The latter half of the eighteenth century witnessed its decline and the kabuki was again in the ascendency both in Osaka, the home of the puppet play, and in Yedo, the capital of the Shogun.
