Kido Okamoto was a Japanese author. His real name was Keiji Okamoto. His best known work is the Shin Kabuki play Bancho Sarayashiki. Kido was born in the district of Shiba Takanawa, a neighbourhood in Minato Ward, Tōkyō
Family
Kido’s father, Okamoto Keinosuke , was a samurai who, after the Meiji Restoration left the service of the Tokugawa Shōgunate and went to work for the British Legation as an interpreter. He was good friends with Ichikawa Danjūrō IX, :ja:小中村清矩|Konakamura Kiyonori, Kawanobe Mitate and who together formed the Antiquarian Society to promote the modernisation of Kabuki based on the doctrine of the Theatre Reform Movement. He was also friends with the owner-manager of the Shintomiza Theatre, an employee of the British Legation and avid Kabuki fan , and an Austro-Hungarian diplomat Heinrich von Siebold.
Life
With the relocation of the British Legation to Kōjimachi District in 1873 Kido’s father moved there with his wife and daughter. Kido was born there, at Nigō Hanzaka, Iitachō in Kōjimachi District. Later they moved to Motozono-chō in Kōjimachi. Kido learnt from the daughter of a local hairdresser and Nagauta by listening to his older sister’s lessons. Early on, when he was too young to go the Kabuki, he was left at home in the care of two maids and would listen to the gossip of his mother and older sister about the performances when they returned home. As he got older he went to the Kabuki with his family when the family would socialise at the in the Shintomiza Theatre’s enclosure. During his early attendances at the Kabuki he took a dislike to Danjūrō IX after witnessing, according to Kido, his childish behaviour during an incident backstage but later became an ardent fan. He would listen to foreign ghost stories told to him by his uncle who brought them back from his overseas travels. He was especially enamoured of ‘Windsor Castle’ by William Harrison Ainsworth which he mistook for Hamlet. At the age of 16 he knew William George Aston, the Secretary of the British Legation, whose children he babysat and from whom he was taught about Shakespeare, a process which Kido said taught him some of the techniques of play-writing. Much to Kido's delight Aston later helped him find the scripts for Kawatake Mokuami's plays 'Nakamitsu', 'Shisenryō Koban Umenoha ', and 'Kagatobi' which had been published by the Ginza-based Kabuki Shinpō Company. He learnt Chinese poetry from his father and English from his uncle, and students at the British Legation. He attended and graduated from Tōkyō First Junior High School afterwards attempting to become a playwright but when that failed from 1890 he wrote stage reviews for the newspaper Tōkyō Nichi Nichi Shimbun, now the Mainichi Shimbun when he used the pseudonym Kyokido, which he later changed to Kido. He went to work for Chūō Shimbun spending 24 years as a newspaper reporter, including a period in Manchuria. He bought the contract of and married a Yoshiwara Geisha from the Uwajima feudal domain called Kojima Sakae. Success eluded him until in 1911, his popular play premiered at the Meijiza. In 1916 his Shin Kabuki play was staged at the . Between 1917 and 1937 was serialised. His series on the theatre of the Meiji period, a valuable resource, the first half of which was serialised in the Monthly Kabuki Review Magazine in the late 1920s, early 1930s as , then again as a series in 1935 and finally in full as 'On the Theatre of the Meiji Period - Under the Lamp' by Iwanami Shoten in 1993. In 1918 he visited the US and Europe. His home and library in Kōjimachi were destroyed in the Great earthquake of 1923. He was taken in by his disciple :ja:額田六福Japanese|Nukata Roppuku from where he moved to Azabu in Minato City. The following year he moved to Hyakuni chō a street in north Shinjuku. From 1935 his articles were occasionally published in :ja:サンデー毎日|Sande Mainichi. His last novel was the controversial Tiger published in 1937 about two brothers running a freak show which is in trouble who hit the jackpot when they get a Tiger cub. He continued to publish plays in the “Stage” magazine from 1930 until 1938. In 1939 he died of pneumonia and is buried with his wife in :ja:青山霊園|Aoyama cemetery in Minami Aoyama After his death one of his students and adoptive heir, his son Okamoto Kyōichi 1909 -2010, founded the Okamoto Kido Journal which printed much of Kido’s work. Kido’s grandson Okamoto Shuichi is the current President. The Okamoto Kido Literary Prize, /', was established but was only awarded twice between 1943 and 1944 during the period leading up to the end of the Second World War.
