On July 1, 2009, Kenzaburo Mogi, 72, a former vice chairman of the soy sauce manufacturing giant Kikkoman Corporation, was appointed to direct the Japan Arts Council, which covers all traditional performing arts of Japan, including noh, kabuki and bunraku (puppet theater).

A soy sauce executive might seem an odd choice to oversee Japan's traditional theater. But Itaru Takashio, the deputy commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs and his colleague, Yayoi Komatsu, director of the Policy Planning and Coordination Division, had good reasons for asking Mogi to join the Japan Arts Council.

Mogi is a member of the Mogi clan in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, which has historical ties to the samurai Maki Genbanokami Yorinori. Yorinori served Toyotomi Hideyoshi's heir Hideyori, and who perished with Hideyori in the battle at the Osaka Castle in the summer of 1615. Mogi specialized in economics at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, and after graduating in 1960 he started working for the Bank of Tokyo. After only two years, however, he joined the Kikkoman Corporation (then called Noda Shoyu, Inc.), where, having an avid interest in English, he established a sales network for Kikkoman in the United States.