I started this store. This year is my 45th year.

After the war, what is so called nen-ki-bo-ko existed in the hagoita doll industry. (nen-ki-bo-ko is to stay in the master's house and work on year by year contract) I think I was the last one to train on such nen-ki-bo-ko. When I think of it now, training in such way was good for me. Nowadays, every craftsman just succeed their parents, which is very lenient. It's much easier that way though. Craftsmen in past days used to join other family as nen-ki-bo-ko, and got scolded, beaten, so and so. In our days, since it was after the war, beating part didn't exist. But in Meiji-Era, it happened pretty often. They learned the work through it, and that made up the work. Nowadays as I said, they only succeed their parents, so if they find it not interesting or not appealing enough, they could just go out and watch the movies. They can't do that if they are in other family. In past, teaching side taught very seriously and earnestly about their work, and pupils learned with the same attitude too. That's why I think training like that was good for me.

In Iriya, Tokyo which is near here, oshi-e shop happened to live there. This oshi-e shop was looking for pupils, and since I didn't have tough body nor outgoing character which made it impossible to become salesperson, I started it. I couldn't move to some other place nor do variety of jobs. It was my 2nd year in middle school, I was about 18years old. I was 28 when I opened the store of my own. Ever since I am here. It's been a long time but I can't go out of Asakusa. I'm a craftsman, so I can't purchase a house anywhere. We are the only manufacture in Asakusa now. There are many wholesale dealers around who sell hagoita through out the year. They should be making good amount of money there… If they're not, there shouldn't be so many stores decorated with hagoitas all year. Those hagoitas are made in Saitama prefecture around Kasikabe, Kawagoe, and Tokorozawa.

Everything we make here is hand made. We stick the paulownia boards together. We sometimes use glue today, but it's better if we don't. The powder made out of the rice for rice cakes is the best. The powder is not a glue. It's actually for making Japanese confectionery. There are many ways to make the hagoita with machines, but we make them by hand. We only use a special kind of silk called "sho-ken." It's harder to get silk, and the price for silk is rising today. The silk that came in from Kyoto last week was actually for making kimonos. Many people think we get the left over pieces of cloths, but we even go to antique market for cloths because there aren't enough materials. But even if we go to antique market, there's no guarantee for us to find the cloths there. The people in the old days used the cloths clean, and reformed them over and over again. Well, we even go to the antique market, but we get most of our materials from Kyoto.

We use scissors, kobasami(small scissors),a trowel, a spatula, and a pencil. We don't use many tools.

It takes about 15years to learn every basic techniques, but many of the apprentices quit around that time. There's no point of taking apprentices in this case, so I don't, but my son draws the faces we use for hagoita. He is in his 3rd year, but he's been practicing the traditional Edo characters, so he can do his work. We write the names of the faces we put on the hagoita in the traditional Edo characters, and it's expencive if we ask someone else to write them. But now when my son is famous in this Edo characters, it might be cheaper to ask someone else. Well, I guess it's more expensive if my son write the characters, but he's the one who's going to take over the store after I die, so I'll just think he's taken over a little early than I thought I will.

The small ones sell well than the large ones. So it might not be productive, but we need to have many different designs and models. Portrait hagoita is very popular, too. There were many craftsmen who wrote portraits before, but there aren't any today. We have to write by our selves. It's good that my son can draw. He never learned how to, but if I tell him what I want, he draws without any practices. Drawing was hard in the beginning, but there's no problem now. (Is it hard to sell?) We can sell a fair amount around new years, but the other seasons are hard. It's just like winning a lottery. Someone happens to want a hagoita, and we happen to be able to meet them. That kind of situation. So when we go to an exhibition to sell hagoita, we bring many different kinds of hagoita. We also bring kendama(Japanese toy), a top etc. besides hagoita. We don't want our sales to be zero.

Oshi-e means a pressed picture. This is a name for the type of pictures(or technique) for hagoita. Uki-e(uki is to float, and e means a picture) was popular for hagoita in the Meiji-era. Uki-e has more three dimensional effects. We put some cottons to make the picture look three dimensional. Actually, there aren't many hagoita stores that makes the picture three dimensional like we do. They mostly stick pictures. The traditional hagoita is all flat, but the flat hagoitas don't sell well today. Our hagoita is mostly for a gift or an ornament. Most of our customers are ladies over sixties. Many of the aged people today are wealthy these days. People in their thirties or forties don't buy hagoita today.

Kataoka Nizaemon, Kataoka Takao, and other kabuki actors are the popular ones. Yumeji is also popular. (what about the actors on TV?) I don't think so. Popularity of the actor is different from attractiveness of the actor. You know, most of the people buying hagoita are ladies. They probablly think, they should do something for the actor they love, and want to get anything the actor's on. So I often watch kabuki etc.

Having hagoita home is just like watching kabuki at home. The hagoita have to be in good quality to have that feeling, though. We have to put our feelings in even when we're cutting the cloths. The quality changes if we're nervous or if we're not when we are making the hagoita. If we think we don't have money, we tend to get stingy and use what _ever piece of cloths, and that's going make the hagoita look cheap. The cheap ones are like that. They use what ever cloths, and they're stingy. High quality ones will look really good if a Japanese confectionery store or kimono store put the hagoita in their show cases. But if the hagoita they put in is the low quality ones, their own products will look cheap, too. Even the 15thousand dollar kimono will look cheap with the cheap decoration. The house would be decorative, and would look very good if you have a hagoita made in high quality. We should make the high quality hagoitas even if we don't expect them to be sold right away. It's the same in "hagoita-ichi" (a huge hagoita exhibition), and I think hagoita should be a thing people can enjoy just by looking at it. We can't make a lot of hagoitas like that because they're high in quality, and need time to make them, though.