Maya Kobayashi Exposed the Conflict in Kabuki World Present in Ebizo Ichikawa’s Apology

On March 21, Maya Kobayashi started her “verbal attack” on Ebizo Ichikawa by exposing him. On March 30, the two revealed on their blog that Ebizo had finally “apologized” to Maya and her husband, osteopathic physician Akira Kunimitsu.

Maya has been exposing her husband’s unreasonable behavior toward her sister Mao Kobayashi (age 34), who passed away in 2017, on her blog and YouTube.

She revealed that Ebizo had been reading horse racing newspapers in Mao’s hospital room and that he had asked her for advice about the pain of married life, saying that he wanted to divorce her. On the 24th, he made a shocking accusation that Ebizo did not allow Mao to receive standard medical treatment.

Maya says that Ebizo did not allow her to receive standard treatment.

At the time, the person who was in charge of Ebizo’s performances in the Middle East was a qigong practitioner and was in charge of Mao’s treatment, and stopping his treatment could have led to the cancellation of the Middle East performances.

 

Furthermore, on the 27th, he appeared by phone on “GaaSyy-ch,” a YouTube live-streaming video by Yoshikazu Higashiya, a former apparel company president known as “GaaSyy-ch”. Ebizo had held a performance in the Middle East in February ’16.

I have 90 million yen, but my sister has 230 million yen and my mother has 40 million yen. I give the money to that con man (referring to the qigong master).”

He confessed. A total of 360 million yen has still not been returned, and they are preparing to file a lawsuit against the person.

I know it is too late, but Maya, you have done a good job,” he said.

A source in the Eizo Erizono pear orchard who knows Ebizo says so.

The story about Mao’s hospital room and the fact that Mao wanted to divorce is a personal matter between Ebizo and Mao, so we don’t know the truth of it. Frankly, I wondered how many people would believe Maya’s story.

But at the time, many people were snickering at the good husband and father figure that Ebizo was showing to the media.”

Of course, there is the question of how much credibility there is in Maya Kobayashi’s story about money, but she says that financial troubles are not uncommon in Nashien.

Basically, kabuki actors don’t have the idea of returning money donated by their tanimachi,” she said. Even if it is his wife’s family. So her confession is truly compelling. Many people involved are fearful of Maya’s words, which exposed the nature of this kind of nashiken. Whether the amount is correct or not, Ebizo must have thought he was in trouble when he was given the details of the amount of money,” said the same person involved in the Nashien business.

However, many insiders say that no matter how much Kobayashi reveals about Ebizo’s story, nothing will change at Nashien, and that Shochiku will not respond.

After all, Ebizo is the face of the Kabuki. Since Mao’s death, Ebizo’s popularity has increased. Since his eldest son, Bazen, started performing on stage, the two of them have become the “billboards” of the Kabuki. It is no exaggeration to say that even during the difficult period of the Corona disaster, the popularity of the two bats somehow managed to keep the audience away from the theater.

Therefore, I believe that Shochiku will do its utmost to protect Ebizo. There is no one who can replace Ebizo. However, it is also true that many people have personal antipathy toward Ebizo. Some people think that Ebizo is the one who supports the popularity of Kabuki, but he is also the one who undermines the prestige of Kabuki,” said a person related to the Kabuki theater.

Kobayashi reported on his blog that Ebizo had apologized to him, but this was in response to Ebizo’s suggestion on his blog last October that the Kobayashi couple divorce without permission. It was not regarding financial troubles.

In any case, it seems certain that Ebizo’s ass is finally on fire – and he is not the only one.