I’ve been living in Tokushima City for five years now (four of them involved a job giving tourist information!) but today I went to Awa Jurobe Yashiki for the first time. They have live shows twice a day on weekends and holidays (11am and 2pm) and once a day at 11am on weekdays.

Awa Jurobe Yashiki was renovated last year, and it’s wheelchair friendly. Other than the live shows, they also have displays of puppets, an empty tatami room of uncertain use, a souvenir shop, and a cute little Japanese garden. When the play was about to begin, we could hear the clacking of wooden claves: tat, tat, tat, tat, ta! ta! ta! ta! ta!tattattattat!

I was impressed by the strange presence of the puppeteers in black, called “kuroko” in Japanese. Once you’ve been watching for a while, they disappear, and the puppets appear to be human. The puppets look particularly alive when they open and close their eyes.

We went there in Papa’s car, but it’s possible to get a bus straight to the venue from Tokushima station. I would recommend timing it so you can see a live show. The Awa Deko Ningyo Kaikan is nearby, and Ningyo Ken, a high-energy guy with some English ability, will show you all about how the puppets are made and how the different mechanical tricks work. Even if you can’t make the live show at Jurobe Yashiki, it’s worth it to head over to the Deko Ningyo Kaikan to see Ningyo Ken’s talk. People who are interested in the inner mechanical workings of things would like this. In the entrance, there was a panel of photos of famous visitors, and I was pleased to see a picture of the Okinawan afro-haired boxing legend, Yoko Gushiken.

I know it’s not quite in focus, but here’s a photo that Sofie took :