In Section 3 of her master work, Takekurabe, Higuchi Ichiyô (1872–96) has one of her adolescent characters, Shôta, suggest to another, Midori, that they put on, as their contribution to the forthcoming neighborhood Otori Festival, a magic lantern (gentô) show. He goes on to suggest that they ask another character, Sangorô, who is talented as a street-hawker and can make people laugh with his chatter, to do a running narration (kôjô) to accompany the performance. Regrettably, this magic-lantern performance never takes place – but the mention of it places Ichiyô's story firmly in the historical context of the mid–Meiji introduction from Europe of popular entertainments anticipating the cinema. The magic lantern (gentô), or stereopticon, was “introduced into Japan in 1874 as a toy.” “Lantern-slide shows had been touring Japan from 1886, and as early as 1893 an Italian had brought something called a ‘kinematograph’ show to Nagasaki,” which was accompanied by ‘live narration.’“

By the time Ichiyô wrote Takekurabe in 1895–1896, home magiclantern performances of the sort planned by Shôta and Midori had become a common form of entertainment for bourgeois families such as Shôta's. It is significant that Shôta's and Midori's plans include two aspects of what was later to become cinema: projection of images to an audience watching in the dark, and explanation and commentary (kôjô) by a live narrator – who would, in cinema, be called a benshi (narrator/ commentator).