Kabuki actor Onoe Kikugoro and nine others were selected Friday by a cultural panel to be named living national treasures, according to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.
The Council for Cultural Affairs, headed by art critic Shuji Takashina, reported its recommendations to culture minister Atsuko Toyama. The honorees will have the title formally bestowed on them around July 10.
Kikugoro's late father, Onoe Baiko VII, was recognized as an intangible cultural treasure in 1968 for specializing in female roles on the kabuki stage.
Kikugoro, a 60-year-old Tokyo resident whose real name is Hideyuki Terajima, and the others will bring the number of living national treasures to 115.
The cumulative total, including people who have died and lost the status, will be 301.
Kikugoro, who plays male characters, will be the 15th performer to be granted the status in the wake of a parent, and the fourth kabuki actor to do so, according to the Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Among the other honorees is Mitsufumi Shimabukuro, 82, a drum master in traditional Okinawa "kumiodori" musicals, which are recognized as an intangible cultural heritage. He lives in Naha.
Also named was potter Ito Sekisui V, 61, whose real name is Yoichi Ito. He produces "mumyoiyaki" ware, made with red ocher clay known as "mumyoi" from Sado Island. He lives in Aikawa on the Niigata Prefecture island.
Kiyomoto Seijudayu, a "joruri" puppeteer whose real name is Yoshitada Sagawa, and Kiyomoto Eizo, a shamisen player born Yasukazu Koyanagi, both 67 and living in Tokyo, will also be honored.
The council selected kabuki hairdresser Toshikazu Kamoji, 65, three other people and an Okinawa traditional arts group as the first technical experts in identifying and preserving cultural assets.
