‘Kokuho’ Makeup Dept. Head Kyoko Toyakawa & Kabuki Makeup Artist Naomi Hibino On Telling The 50-Year Story Of A Kabuki Actor Through Makeup

It’s not often that a film that showcase elements of traditional Kabuki theater reaches American audiences like That’s it. It’s one of the types of theater where makeup plays an absolutely essential role, so makeup department head Kyoko Toyokawa took on the film with makeup artist Naomi Hibino, who worked on the Kabuki makeup. That work has earned both Toyokawa and Hibino an Oscar nomination.

That’s it follows the story Kikuo Tachibana (Ryo Yoshizawa), a man born into a gangster family who is adopted by a famous Kabuki actor. The film spans over 50 years of Tachibana’s life, which was the main focus of Toyokawa’s work. Hibino used her roots as a makeup artist for traditional Japanese dance to help her work on the Kabuki scenes, even though Kabuki actors usually do the makeup themselves.

DEADLINE: Kyoko, as the overall makeup department head for a film focused on Kabuki, what was your focus for the film?

KYOKO TOYOKAWA: This film was largely about doing really good Kabuki makeup, but at the same time, the story sections of this film with actors was kind of makeup as usual in some ways. It was really about acknowledging how they feel on each day, what their experience has been that day, and making sure that they feel really good when they get in front of camera through the makeup that we do for them.

Originally, I was actually going to do all the makeup for this film, including the Kabuki makeup. But with this being an epic story that spanned 50 years, with so many other things to do… I’ve done a little bit of that white makeup of Kabuki before, but I’m not a specialist in this. Rather than having someone like me who has just learned the basics, having someone who is a specialist who really knows this stuff would be a better thing. I felt that the actors would feel better that way, so that’s when Naomi was hired for the film. The only times that we collaborated together was when I added sweat to the faces sometimes, or we wouldn’t be working on someone’s face together, except for the scene where Kikuo is on the rooftop. Naomi did the basic makeup for that, and then I made it kind of rough.

DEADLINE: Naomi, what are the difficulties of bringing Kabuki makeup to the screen?

NAOMI HIBINO: I do makeup for traditional Japanese dance, and the Kabuki makeup usually is just done so that the audience can really enjoy it from a distance. So, thinking more about closeups in film was something that was a new challenge for me. Kabuki actors do their own makeup normally, so the experience that I have is with traditional Japanese dance.

DEADLINE: What are some highlights you have from working on the film?

TOYOKAWA: I would say that one thing that left an impression on me was working with the actor who did young Kikuo (Soya Kurokawa). He was very nervous and seeing him work, every time they would say cut, he would be looking at the director’s face to make sure that he was doing something well. In terms of the work that I did, I would say this is an epic story that spans 50 years and I was able to do these gradual changes in the looks through the makeup, and especially in the hair. Not big sudden changes, but gradual changes are something I’m very proud of.

HIBINO: For me, something that really left an impression was at the end, the Heron Maiden Kabuki. We had special effects makeup under the white makeup that I did, so it was the first time for me to do something like that, and I thought it looked very beautiful and there was something about it, I’m not sure if it was mystical or something very unique. It felt like the 50 years of this whole story was kind of expressed in that moment.