Three Nobunaga in Eight Years!

This month the Nagoya Omotenashi Busho-tai celebrated 8 years of activity.
The PR group was formed on November 3, 2009 to celebrate the 400 years since the foundation of Nagoya City.
"8" is a lucky number in Japanese tradition, as its kanji, "八", moves upwards and is open at the bottom, signifying a never-ending growth.
For this reason the maruhachi (The kanji for eight with a circle around) is also the official symbol of Nagoya city, adopted on March 1907: it was originally used by the Tokugawa clan of Owari as its family seal.

During the eight years of glamorours activity and promotion, though, three Nobunagas changed on the stage of Nagoya castle.


The first of them was Kenshun, who was already a theatre and talent actor in Tokyo.
He won the auction to became Nobunaga while he was enstablishing his own theatre ensemble, SCANP, that would make its official debut on 2011.
He left the Busho-tai on 2012, as he kept pursuing his career as an actor.

The second Nobunaga, the one that I met at EXPO 2015, was Shinsuke Sano.
He worked as a threatre actor and producer after an experience as enka singer in Tokyo, on 2009 he entered the theatre unit Smile BaKation.
He became the new Nobunaga on May 2012, and left his office on March 2016, during a "graduation ceremony" that left his 1500 fans in tears.

Our third and current Nobu is Kento Iwasaki.
Apparently Kento was a former employee of Nagoya touristic office nonetheless!
He doesn't have any previous experience as an actor or entertainer but he passed the auction because of his love for Nobunaga, dancing an "Atsumori" that bewitched the jury.

--Let's hope that he'll be our Nobunaga for a long time! By now the "older" member of the busho-tai is Gaku Kurahashi, the re-enactor of Tokugawa Ieyasu, in service since 2009!