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

Agency

→落語芸術協会 * オフィスまめかな

Active years

1951 - 2018

High school

Yokohama Municipal Yokohama Commerce High School

Awards & achievements

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

Spouse

椎名 冨士子

Works summary

Appearances

44 (1965–2017)

By 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

Debut work

金曜夜席

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

September 18, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. 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.