Ichikawa Kodanji IV

Ichikawa Kodanji IV is the kind of figure who stops you cold when you actually do the math — this man was born in 1812, which means he was already in his forties when Commodore Perry sailed into Edo Bay and basically blew Japan's doors off. The whole country was cracking apart at the seams, the shogunate was crumbling, everyone was arguing about opening up or staying closed — and here's Kodanji IV doing what kabuki actors do, night after night on the wooden stage, holding an audience through sheer craft. He never made it to the Meiji era; he died in June 1866, just over a year before the Restoration that rewrote everything. Honestly, that gap haunts me a little. A performer shaped entirely by Edo, gone right before the world he knew got swept away — I have to wonder what he would have made of it all, and what kabuki would have looked like filtered through those eyes.

Ichikawa Kodanji IV (1812–1866) was a Japanese kabuki actor active during the late Edo period. Born in Izu Province along the Tokaido road, he lived through the turbulent final decades of the Tokugawa shogunate, including the arrival of Commodore Perry's fleet. He died on June 20, 1866, at around 54 years of age, before witnessing the Meiji Restoration that would soon transform Japan.

Name (English)

Ichikawa Kodanji IV

Name (Japanese)

四代目 市川小團次

Reading

いちかわ こだんじ

Born

January 1, 1812 – June 20, 1866

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Monkey (申)

Origin

Izu Province, Tokaido, Japan

Occupation

Kabuki actor / Actor

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%82%E5%B7%9D%E5%B0%8F%E5%9C%98%E6%AC%A1%20(4%E4%BB%A3%E7%9B%AE)

Tags

• Tokaido
• Kabuki actor
• Kabuki
• Actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.