In Kairennosuke and the Three Shining Swords he’s played by Ichikawa Ebizō XI, not just the most popular kabuki actor alive but an avowed Star Wars enthusiast as well. “I like the conflict between the Jedi and the Dark Side of the Force,” Baseel quotes Ichikawa as saying. It turns out to be the Japanese name given to the character of Kylo Ren, the power-hungry nephew of Luke Skywalker portrayed by Adam Driver in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker. To even the hardest-core Star Wars exegete, Kairennosuke may be an unfamiliar name - though not entirely unfamiliar. Staged one time only last Friday at Tokyo’s Meguro Persimmon Hall, Kairennosuke and the Three Shining Swords retells the events of recent films The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in Japan’s best-known traditional theater form. The vast franchise has produced “cinematic sequels, TV specials, animated spin-offs, novels, comic books, video games, but it wasn’t until November 28 that there was a Star Wars kabuki play,” writes Sora News 24’s Casey Baseel. Anyone can tell by the undiminishing popularity of the ever more frequent expansions of the Star Wars universe more than 40 years after the movie that started it all - and not just in the English-speaking West, but all the world over. The appeal of Star Wars transcends generation, place, and culture.
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