Katsura Utamaru

For a lot of us his voice was the sound of Sunday evening ending. On Shoten he traded barbs like a man who enjoyed being disliked, then took over as host and became the one holding the whole room together, which is the harder job by far. Born in Yokohama in 1936, into rakugo as a teenager, later head of the Rakugo Geijutsu Kyokai and decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun. What stays with me is the end: short of breath, oxygen line in place, still climbing onto the cushion to work. He died in 2018, aged 81.

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Name (English)

Katsura Utamaru

Name (Japanese)

桂歌丸

Reading

かつら うたまる

Born

August 14, 1936 – July 2, 2018

Origin

Maganechō, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

rakugoka / television presenter / comedian

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Leo / Rat

Active years

1951 - 2018

High school

Yokohama Municipal Yokohama Commerce High School

Awards & achievements

• The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette

Works summary

Appearances

44 (1965–2017)

By year (titles with a known year)

1965: 1, 1966: 1, 1967: 3, 1970: 2, 1972: 1, 1973: 1, 1977: 1, 1978: 1, 1979: 1, 1980: 2, 1982: 1, 1984: 1, 1988: 1, 1996: 1, 2001: 2, 2003: 1, 2005: 3, 2006: 1, 2007: 4, 2008: 1, 2010: 2, 2012: 4, 2013: 1, 2014: 1, 2016: 3, 2017: 2, year unknown: 1

Filmography / notable works

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsura%20Utamaru
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A1%82%E6%AD%8C%E4%B8%B8
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11536817

Tags

• Kanagawa Prefecture
• rakugoka
• television presenter
• comedian

Last updated

November 2, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.