Kabuki Theatre.

Friday 5th October. Day 71. Misty and humid.

After brunch, Akihiro drove us all into central Osaka.
He bought everyone tickets for a kabuki program at a theatre.
Kabuki is like pantomime, but for adults: spectacular sets, gorgeous costumes, and a dramatic historical theme. All the parts are played by males, because long ago, a short-sighted government, desiring to eradicate licentious behaviour among thespians, prohibited female actors.

The programme didn't begin until 4 p.m., so we passed some time by eating in a nearby sushi restaurant and walking about the streets of the theatrical area, being amazed by a giant animotronic crab waving its legs and pincers to advertise a crab restaurant.

The theatre and the performance were utterly magnificent.
The play "Shinsangokushi" was a story from the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. There were three acts and two intervals, altogether lasting five and a half hours. Lots of action, songs, stirring speeches, and music ranging from martial to romantic.
Each act had at least one incredible spectacle amidst the dramatics:
in Act one there was an acrobatic display by players dressed as tigers and monkeys;
in Act two, armies battled in a thunderstorm with genuine torrential rain;
in Act three there was a fire (with explosions)in a gunpowder warehouse;
finally, capping all these, the hero and heroine died and their souls ascended (drawn upwards by ropes attached to the actors' backs) into a starlit theatre, then through clouds to disappear into heaven, located above us in the gods.
Presently the hero and heroine themselves re-appeared as stars in the night sky, visible above the stage.
Witnessing this tableau of death and transfiguration, both Colin and I felt the floodgates of our emotions flung open, and tears poured down our cheeks, delighting Akihiro and Masako who had feared we wouldn't understand the play and be terribly bored.
Later, after prolonged curtain calls for the entire cast, the hero and heroine re-appeared on stage as angels together in heaven.
We've never seen the equal for stage effects. (But then you don't see much in the way of stage effects in Queenscliff).

When we came out of the theatre we walked in the street, buying crab sushi and crab balls for supper at home.
The streets (this was the theatrical precinct) were packed with memorable sights. Shop signs - "Shot Bar", "Hair - Nail - Make", "Art And Beer Complex" (in the Kirin - Osaka Plaza).
We saw a fugu (puffer fish) restaurant and lots of Pachinko Parlours sounding like a million rainstorms as the masses dementedly worked the gambling machines.
There were hundreds of elegantly coiffed, dressed and shod women - this place is like Paris to the power of ten, or even more. Lots of trendy looking, mobile phone clutching, smartly suited young men, sporting carefully windblown, bleached hairstyles.
Where we crossed a canal, a group of students were singing on the bridge.
A little further on a girl in high school dress was striking a provocative pose straight out of "manga": hips thrust forward, skirt hitched up, long white socks collapsed onto sneaker clad feet.
Tomorrow, The Pirate Coast.