勘亭流

Kanteiryū is the distinctive lettering of kabuki signboards and playbills, also called shibai moji, "theatre letters." Said to be an exaggerated development of the official Oieryū hand of the Edo period, it is thick, rounded, and undulating in stroke.

In 1779 the scribe Okazakiya Kanroku is said to have written the New Year signboard for the Nakamura-za, and the style took its name from his sobriquet, Kantei. By auspicious custom it is written without gaps, the strokes hooking inward as if to beckon the audience in—a brush-borne prayer for a full house.

Kanteiryū is one of the lettering styles known collectively as Edo moji, raised by Edo's entertainment culture. The yose variety halls have their Tachibana-school yose moji, sumo its Negishi-school sumō ji—all written thick and gapless in hope of a full house, yet each grown into a distinct form in its own world. One glance at the lettering tells you the entertainment: a stylish device of Edo.

Kanteiryū still adorns kabuki's signboards, maneki placards, and program titles—the very face of the theatre. At productions from name-succession celebrations onward, the name Ichikawa Danjūrō too is raised in these letters, conveying at a glance the festive bustle of the theatre since Edo.