見得

A mie is the moment when an actor suddenly stops at an emotional peak—rotating the head, opening the eyes wide, and holding a sculptural pose. The sharp "battari" of the tsuke clappers lands at the same instant, and the whole stage resolves into a single picture. It is often compared to a cinematic close-up.

Many mie are tied to specific plays and roles—the Genroku mie in Shibaraku, the pillar-wrapping mie in Narukami. It is also the classic moment for spectators to call out an actor's house name, when the whole theatre breathes as one.

A single play can hold a whole sequence of mie. In Kanjinchō, Benkei, Togashi, and Yoshitsune lock into the three-figure "heaven-earth-man" mie; Benkei ends his reading of the subscription scroll with the "Fudō mie," modeled on the guardian deity Fudō Myōō; the mountain-ascetic catechism closes with a Genroku mie; and the "stone-throwing mie" follows. Simply watching for the mie is one of the easiest ways for a first-time viewer to follow the drama's pulse.

The phrase mie o kiru—"to cut a mie"—has entered everyday Japanese: striking a showy, self-assured attitude is "cutting a mie," and making a grand, confident declaration is "cutting a great mie" (ōmie o kiru). Offstage as well as on, the gesture lives on in the language.

Alongside the mie, the Ichikawa Sōke hands down a special crossed-eyed glare called the nirami. Being "glared at" by Danjūrō is popularly said to drive away evil and bring a year of good health, and it is performed on landmark occasions such as name-succession celebrations.