Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Kabuki trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This kabuki trivia quiz covers the four-hundred-year-old Japanese theatre of painted faces, stylised poses and all-male casts. The easy questions cover the country, the shrine maiden who founded it in Kyoto in 1603, the meaning of its three characters, the men who play women's roles and the year UNESCO recognised it. From there the quiz moves through the history: the ban on women in 1629, the rowdy wakashu years, the Genroku flowering, Chikamatsu's love suicides and the government's 1723 ban on them, the fires that pushed the theatres out to Asakusa and the brief post-war ban by the American occupation. The hard end covers the craft: red versus blue kumadori, the mie pose credited to Ichikawa Danjuro I, the aragoto rough style, jidaimono and sewamono, the shamisen and nagauta, the flower path, revolving stages and trap doors, actors flying by chunori, the invisible black-clad kuroko, the audience shouts of house names, the 47 ronin play, the Kabuki-za's fires and rebuilds, and the Super Kabuki adaptations of Naruto, One Piece and Final Fantasy X. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for kabuki, aragoto and the Kabuki-za before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Japan, Japanese culture and world theatre quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Kabuki is a classical form of theatre from which country?
Japan
It grew up in the early Edo period and is known for its heavily stylised acting and elaborate costumes.
Q 02Who is regarded as the founder of kabuki?
Izumo no Okuni
She was a former shrine maiden, possibly a miko of Izumo-taisha, and was soon asked to perform for the Imperial Court.
Q 03In which year did kabuki begin, with Okuni's troupe of female dancers?
1603
A statue of her was erected in 2002 to mark 400 years of the art.
Q 04In which city did Okuni's troupe first perform?
Kyoto
Her statue stands across from the city's last remaining theatre, by the bridge over the Kamo River.
Q 05What do the three kanji of the word kabuki mean?
Sing, dance and skill
The word probably derives from the verb kabuku, to lean or be out of the ordinary, so it can also mean avant-garde theatre.
Q 06In what year were women banned from performing kabuki?
1629
Fights kept breaking out among young samurai patrons, and many performers were also involved in prostitution.
Q 07What is the term for a male actor who specialises in female roles?
Onnagata
Bando Tamasaburo V is the best-known living example and has played women in films outside kabuki.
Q 08What was the all-adult-male style that the art switched to in the mid-1600s called?
Yaro
Wakashu, adolescent boys chosen for their looks, had been briefly banned too; both bans were lifted by 1652.
Q 09In which year did UNESCO first proclaim kabuki an intangible heritage of outstanding universal value?
2005
It went onto the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.
Q 10What is the hanamichi?
A walkway extending from the stage into the audience
The name means flower path; Okuni herself used one.
Q 11What is the name of the elaborate, mask-like makeup worn by some kabuki actors?
Kumadori
It sits on a white base and exaggerates the facial lines into animal or supernatural masks.
Q 12What do red lines in the stylised stage makeup signify?
Passion, heroism and righteousness
Blue or black lines mark villains, green the supernatural and purple nobility.
Q 13What is a mie?
A picturesque pose held to establish character
Its development is credited to the founder of the Ichikawa line in the Genroku period.
Q 21During which era did the mawari-butai, or revolving stage, develop?
The Kyoho era, 1716-1735
Trap doors called seri appeared around the middle of the 18th century.
Q 22What is chunori?
An actor flying over the stage on wires
It appeared in the mid-19th century and the Kabuki-za, National Theatre and Minami-za are all rigged for it.
Q 23What are the kuroko?
Stagehands dressed entirely in black, considered invisible
Q 14Which actor pioneered aragoto, the exaggerated 'rough style' of Edo kabuki?
Ichikawa Danjuro I
Roles in that style wear bold red or blue makeup and enlarged, padded costumes; the mie pose is credited to the same actor.
Q 15What are the three main categories of kabuki play?
Jidaimono, sewamono and shosagoto
History plays, domestic plays and dance pieces respectively.
Q 16Sewamono, or 'domestic plays', focus mainly on which social group?
Commoners such as townspeople and peasants
Jidaimono history plays, by contrast, generally focus on samurai.
Q 17Which playwright, one of the first professional kabuki writers, is best known for The Love Suicides at Sonezaki?
Chikamatsu Monzaemon
That piece was actually written for the puppet theatre first.
Q 18Why did the government ban love-suicide plays in 1723?
They reportedly inspired copycat suicides
Sonezaki Shinju had been adapted from the puppet stage and become hugely popular.
Q 19Kanadehon Chushingura, one of the most famous plays in the repertoire, tells the story of which historical event?
The revenge of the 47 ronin
It is set in the 1330s as a disguise for a contemporary 18th-century affair.
Q 20Which stringed instrument is the principal accompaniment of kabuki music such as nagauta?
The shamisen
Musicians play from behind a bamboo screen called the kuromisu at stage left.
They add and remove props mid-scene and help with quick costume changes known as hayagawari.
Q 24What do expert audience members shout at a climactic moment, in a practice called kakegoe?
The actor's house name
An even greater compliment is to shout the name of the actor's father.
Q 25What is the general term for kabuki's visual stage tricks, often translated as 'playing to the gallery'?
Keren
Flying by wire is still one of the most popular of them.
Q 26To which district of Edo were the three great theatres forced to move after the fires of the 1840s?
Asakusa
The new street was called Saruwaka-cho, and its last thirty years of Tokugawa rule produced some of the most exaggerated kabuki ever.
Q 27Which set of shogunal measures, begun in 1842, targeted kabuki as an overindulgence in pleasure?
The Tenpo Reforms
The shogun had already refused to let the burnt Nakamura-za be rebuilt on fire-code grounds.
Q 28Who initiated Edo kabuki at the Nakamura-za in 1624, giving his name to the later theatre street?
Saruwaka Kanzaburo
Utagawa Hiroshige made a print series of the Saruwaka district in its new home.
Q 29In which registered red-light district of Edo did kabuki become a common entertainment?
Yoshiwara
Kabuki was unique in gathering a crowd of every social class in one place.
Q 30Which puppet theatre developed alongside kabuki, with the two art forms borrowing from each other?
Bunraku
In the mid-18th century the puppets briefly overtook kabuki as the favourite entertainment of the lower classes.