The Influence of Samurai Class on Men Characters' Image on Kabuki Stage throughout the Edo Period (1603-1868)

Nowadays the traditional Japanese theater kabuki is becoming more and more popular with spectators all around the world. For example, kabuki plays are staged in America (2019), France (2018) and even Russia (2018). What’s more, Japan Foundation has launched a Russian website about kabuki and its plays where uploaded several video versions of plays in Russian. However, not many viewers have sufficient knowledge about kabuki and its traits. Sometimes, they can’t understand its references to Japanese culture and traditions. Thus, these people can’t fully enjoy kabuki shows until they know the main characteristics of characters in this theater and its relation to Japanese culture. Although a number of scientific papers have covered both the kabuki theater ( ) and samurai (), the research of the relationship between them hasn’t been conducted yet. The present study aims to describe main kabuki characters aragotoshi. In addition, this paper explores the image of samurai in the eighteenth century and its impact on the aragotoshi. To this aim, this study will address the following research questions: What was the image of Japanese samurai during the Edo period? How the main characters aragotoshi are depicted on the stage in kabuki theater? What is the impact of the image of samurai during the Edo period on the development of roles called aragotoshi? We put forward the following hypothesis: the image of samurai in the eighteenth century made a huge impact on the formation of kabuki roles aragatoshi. Therefore, today kabuki shows samurai culture on the stage effectively. To realize the objectives and to test the hypothesis, the current study will use multiple plays’ texts and videos including: “Just a Moment!”, “The Subscription List”, “Revenge of the Soga Brothers” and “Sukeroku Flower of Edo”. We will employ several research methods to achieve the presented goals. Firstly, we will use historical research to describe the samurai image in the eighteenth century. Next, we will apply content analysis to examine plays’ texts and videos in order to find out common traits of aragatoshi characters. In the end, we will make comparative historical analysis to compare the traits of samurai and aragotoshi and explore whether samurai characteristics influenced kabuki theater or not. key words: kabuki, Japanese theater, aragotoshi, samurai, Edo