Hyokkori Hyōtan-jima
Original title: ひょっこりひょうたん島
Trailer
Synopsis
Sunday-sensei and five children arrive on a school trip to Hyōtan Island just as its volcano erupts and severs it from the mainland, setting it adrift. They are joined by an assortment of characters who fall or wash up on the island — the gangster Machine Gun Dandy, the one-eyed pirate Torahige, the talkative politician Don Gabacho, an escaped lion, and the doctor Mumamomemu — forming a motley community that, across hundreds of musical-comedy episodes, faces off against rival kingdoms, pirates, witches, and even a vote on joining the UN.
Context & Trivia
NHK's most popular and influential ningyō-geki ever produced. The puppets were built and performed by the Hitomi-za troupe, with character design by Shō Kataoka; veteran puppeteer Wataru Suda served as puppet performance director and Tadao Nagahama as puppet acting supervisor. In the final episode, unusually for the series, the puppeteers themselves (Suda, Kataoka, and voice actor Arihiro Fujimura) appeared on camera alongside the puppets. The original, badly worn puppets were destroyed after the show ended; years later spare puppets turned up in an NHK warehouse, allowing a 1990s remake to be produced with new voice recordings from much of the original cast.
Puppeteers
Wataru Suda
Puppet design
Shō Kataoka
Puppet companies
劇団ひとみ座 (Hitomi-za)
Writing
Hisashi Inoue, Mamoru Yamamoto
Cast
Arihiro Fujimura, Toshie Kusunoki, Kazuo Kumakura, Kyōji Kobayashi, Junpei Takiguchi, San'ji Hase, Chinatsu Nakayama, Makiko Itō, Eiko Masuyama, Kyōko Emi, Ayako Hori, Yoshiko Fujita
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