Kanze Nobumitsu


Kanze Kojiro Nobumitsu was a Japanese noh playwright and secondary actor during the Muromachi Era, from the house of Kanze. He was the grandson of Noh playwright Zeami Motokiyo, and is considered one of the last important playwrights of the golden age of Noh. He was the author of around 30 plays.
Among his most famous plays is the play Rashōmon, which spelled the title of the Rajōmon gate by using the kanji shō for "life" rather than the original jō for "castle." This reading has been corrected back in modern Japanese, but left its trace in the title of later stories named Rashōmon and the film of Akira Kurosawa.

Selected plays