'Ban-shu Sara Yashiki' is one of the variations of the dish-counting ghost stories. Its basic story is that a lady-in-waiting, Okiku, is killed by her master because of breaking a treasure dish. It could have based to a real incident, but nobody knows which incident means it particularly now. Although this drama was first performed in 1741, there was an article about the dish-counting ghost in 1681 already. So the real incident happened before 1681 at least, and in the Edo period, people knew that incident very well at that time. It had been performed on Kabuki and Bunraku, puppet play, with many variations since that time.

As I mentioned, 'Ban-shu Sara Yashiki' is one of the variations of the well-known horror story. But there is a peculiar element that its main character, Asayama Tetsuzan has. This drama describes about a cool-blood person's beauty particularly. And that shows eroticism of Okiku being tortured. Sometimes I wrote that Kabuki was thought as a childish entertainment before Meiji Restoration in 1868. But it doesn't mean that Kabuki was an entertainment for children. There was no child audience at that time and also recently. Actually, Kabuki was really erotic stage play for adults. So it isn't wrong to say that this drama is one of the typical plays of Kabuuki. This time, Hashinosuke performed as Tetsuzan, and I think that he had done a good job. Hashinosuke's Tetsuzan was beautiful enough to say that he was a cool-blood person. I enjoyed its eroticism, and bizarre beauty at the theater.

'Ban-shu' means the area of present Hyogo prefecture, and this drama happens at Himeji Castle that is one of the world inheritances. Himeji Castle is a beautiful white castle, and people can see a well that is called 'Okiku's well' there still now. So you might see Okiku's ghost there. (2002,8,10)