Junji Kinoshita

Junji Kinoshita (1914–2006) was the foremost playwright of modern drama in postwar Japan. He was also a translator and scholar of Shakespeare's plays. Kinoshita’s achievements were not limited to Japan. He helped to promote theatrical exchanges between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, and he traveled broadly in Europe and Asia. In addition to his international work, Kinoshita joined various societies that focused on the study of folktales and the Japanese language.

Kinoshita was born in Tokyo as the son of government official Kinoshita Yahachiro and his wife, Sassa Mie. Kinoshita attended school in Tokyo until 1925 when his parents moved back to his father's hometown of Kumamoto to retire. Kinoshita was in fourth grade at the time. Although Kinoshita was teased very much by other students because of his Tokyo dialect at his new school, this experience in his childhood made him think deeply about the Japanese language and become more aware of the complexities of spoken language. He attended Kumamoto Prefectural Middle School and later went on to Kumamoto Fifth High School, where he received a degree equivalent to that of a western university.

Twilight a Crane

This play is derived from the folktale "Turu no Ongaeshi". One day, Yohyō, a poor, but kind farmer, helps a crane struggling who with getting out of a trap. Later, a woman named Tsu comes to visit Yohyō and tells him that she wants to marry him, and so they become a husband and a wife. Tsū weaves beautiful textiles. Yohyō makes some money by selling it, but Tsū never allows him to look into the room when she is weaving. Sōdo and Unzu, money-hungry people, tempt Yohyō to ask for Tsū to make more textiles. When Tsu complies, they and Yohyō finally break Yohyō’s promise and look into the secret room. It turns out that Tsū is a crane and she has been weaving the textiles by using her own feathers. When Tsū realizes Yohyō broke his promise, she changes herself back into a crane and flies away. Yūzuru has a wide range of scholarly interpretations. Scholar Brian Powell notes that “its appeal has continued over more than half a century, perhaps suggesting that Kinoshita’s rather pessimistic view of human nature is shared or at least understood by a wide cross-section of the population.”