This week I have primarily worked on narrow down the scope of our group. When thought about topics about Bunraku for the first time, it remind me of a Japanese animation Puppet Master Sacon. This Animation is about a boy Sacon who was born in a family with a long history of perfoming Bunraku. He and his puppet travel together and solve mysteries. The most interesting thing is in this animation, the puppet is alive. He can speak and move by himself. I thought it might be interesting if we look at the adaptation of Bunraku in popular animation. How the understanding of the art form Bunraku changes in the contemporary world of Japan? How the puppet represents life and death? These are questions might be possible to further narrow down in a research. Therefore, I searched some articles about this topic. Jamie gave me a link of a useful article: From Wooden Cyborgs to Celluloid Souls:Mechanical Bodies in Anime and Japanese Puppet Theater. The article uses the animation film “Ghost in the Shell' and “The Empire of Signs” to analyze performative aspects of puppets. The puppets in these two films helps to refocus the audiences’ attention on anime’s particular mode of representation—distanced from real body and lives. This article helps me deeply think about the relations between anime and the Bunraku. They both are detached from real body and imitate the real life. That makes Puppet Master Sacon more interesting because the puppet is alive. What will happened and what is the meaning of some artificial objects gain the ability to think and control human? Is that terrible? What is the fear from contemporary society in japan (or anywhere) change the representation of Bunraku art?
In our second group meeting, we discussed everybody’s interest and finally decided to focus on Chikamatsu. I found a book written by Shigetoshi Kawatake, The Development of Japanese Art. I found the English translation but cannot access it. So I use a Chinese translation instead. Hopefully I can found one English version soon. In this book, it introduced Chikamutsu is the first playwright of Bunraku. Before, the Bunraku was written only by actors themselves. His plays are much more dramatic than the earlier Bunraku works, and contain much more complicated stories. In another book I found Bunraku, the Puppet Theatre, it talked about the five-act play created by Chikamutsu. The first act is ceremonial setting, the second act is to give details about the situation, the third act is the action, the fourth act is road-going (an important change will happened at the destination, the fifth act is the ending, usually with a glorious triumph. (Ando 126-128) After reading the description of the functions of the five acts, I guess there are connections between this form and the characteristics of much more dramatic stories in the play. Before, there were usually 8-12 acts in one play. Five-act dramatic form is shorter, in which will make the writer concentrated in storytelling. In addition, almost every action is in the third act, equals to one-act play, to some extend. That is another reason of why his plays are much more dramatic than the former Bunraku plays.
I read the introduction of Chikamatsu 5 late plays in order to find something important about his life and writing styles. He was born in edo-period, in an upper-class family. (Gerstle 8) I think this historical context is very important and I will dig into it and find other information of his childhood and the edo-period society. These will help me to understand why he has the ability and power to make such changes. In his history or period plays, he increasingly incorporated elements of complex character portrayal from the contemporary-life works. They are usually realistic. In his period plays there are multiple plots and supernatural elements. (Gerstle 2) From this description I know more about genres of his plays. It seems his period play is one of the most dramatic genres and with the concern of social issues. If we focused on the connection between society and his writing styles, I think it will be very good to choose one of his period plays as the example to analyze.
Ando, Tsuruo. Bunraku: The Puppet Theater. New York: Walker/Weatherhill, 1970. Print.
Rose, you present a lot of information here, but I don't see an organizing principle that will help you to sort through this information. Draw on your Research Methods class. What questions do you have now that you have found this information? Do those questions constitute research questions, i.e., questions that lead to claims? For example, you write: "In this book [about Japanese Art], it introduced Chikamutsu [a]s the first playwright of Bunraku. Before, the Bunraku was written only by actors themselves." I read this and I think, "Hmmm...what caused the shift? Did Chikamatsu want to control the art form? If so, did he manufacture the take-over of Bunraku? Who were the actors? Did they have the same social standing as Chikamatsu?" These questions could eventually lead to claims about the social currency of Bunraku and the benefits that Chikamatsu reaped.
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