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In this video, we take a look at the sekai (“world“) of the Soga brothers, through the main plays and dances that survive in the modern kabuki repertoire, and the actors and playwrights who shaped these characters and stories. I've wanted to cover many different aspects of the Soga repertoire for a while, but the resulting video has been chaotic and underwhelming. I hope that at least you enjoy it to some extent, and that it serves as a starting point for a better thought out discussion of this wonderful genre in the future! I would have liked to better explain the play Tsuwamono Kongen Soga (1697) and its connection to the existing plays better. You can find much more about this play and other related ideas in William James Lee's thesis “Genroku Kabuki: Cultural Production and Ideology in Early Modern Japan“, which is publicly available online. I also would have liked to cover in more depth the play Ya no Ne (1729), but I had very little footage. There is a lovel
