Learn: Ningyo Johruri Bunraku Puppet Theatre

Yo!

I randomly found some vids on youtube about The Japanese Puppet Theater. And guess what? It fascinated me, so again.. I share it here:

Well first.. Ningyo Johruri.  Ningyo does actually just mean puppet and Johruri is some kind of a narrator or a storyteller. The narrator I think use to sing the story in some kind of way.

 So as you see in the video the puppet is not controlled with wires or anything like western puppetshow. It's usually three persons, one main and two "helpers" who controls the puppet

You can see that I have marked out the 3 "controllers"
Where the guy on the left is the main one



The visibility of the controllers are not important and I guess they are kinda part of the show. I thought it was kinda weird and different from what I have usually seen, you'll get used to it x) but as I told you before.. I find it very fascinating.. indeed.

What else.. hmm oh yeah, I even watched a clip were they told a little about the mechanism behind the movements of the different parts of the puppet.. Like they got several strips attached to the head that can move the head like in a nodding way or move the eyes to left and right, open and close mouth and move the eyebrows.

Again, I have marked out where the strings are
It's not easy to see.. but their there xD

I ended up watching three different shows lasting 4, 7 and 14 minutes.. so I spent around nearly half an hours watching this stuff.. Reminder to myself.. I have to go to the theater next time I'm in Japan!