Japanese rakugo classic comic storyteller Katsura Beicho died of pneumonia on Thursday evening, his office said. He was 89.
Beicho, whose real name was Kiyoshi Nakagawa, was honored by the government as a living national treasure in 1996 and was awarded the Order of Culture in 2009 for the first time among rakugo storytellers.
Born in Dalian in what was then called Manchuria in northeastern China, he started his rakugo career in 1947 and took up Beicho the Third as his stage name.
He is credited with reviving and refining the art of storytelling in the Kyoto-Osaka area, known as kamigata rakugo, distinct from Edo rakugo of the Tokyo area, through his performances of long-forgotten classics adapted to modern days.
Katsura Bunshi, head of the Kamigata Rakugo Kyokai, an association of storytellers, said he has been able to serve the storytellers' group because of Beicho's encouragement. "I have too many words to remember and thank him and cannot sort them out," he said.
Beicho made his last appearance on stage in January 2013. His regular radio program finished after he was hospitalized in August the same year.
Fans in the Kansai region covering Osaka and Kyoto mourned the rakugo master's death. "We in Kansai were proud of him," said Tamon Mochidome, a 39-year-old company employee from Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture. "He had dignity and was a role model for young people. We don't know if we will have a rakugo storyteller like Beicho."
Michiyo Minamino, 53, an amateur rakugo storyteller from Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, said: "I listened to him perform more than 10 years ago. He was like a god."
