#fukuharu

Part Three- Het Ships III

Let’s see if I rank any ship above a five or below a negative three. Let’s see if y’all are serving any good food or truly stank ish.

Part One & Two

April 2017: maiko Fukuharu under cherry blossoms by 55maiko.net 

She’s now a geiko named Kanowaka!

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She did not change her hanamachi, she remained active in Gion Higashi, she did change her geimei and okiya, though. And to be quite honest, no one really knows yet, and all we can do is speculate up until now. Maybe we’ll find out in the future.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Maiko Fukuharu (Okatome Okiya) of Gion Higashi retired in late April of 2017 and came back as Geiko Kanowaka just 2 months later in late June of 2017, now affiliated with the Kanoya Okiya. She also didn’t have an Erikae or an official Misedashi as a Geiko, she just started working again under a different name and okiya as if she had been the entire time and nobody really knows why.

Her wig-maker said in an Instagram-post that her wig had been ordered months before she came back, so either this whole “scheme” must have been planned, or her Erikae from Okatome had been planned and something happened that prevented it. There are several different possibilites as to why this happened that I can think of:

1. Kanowaka was unhappy at Okatome and wanted to cut ties with them or maybe just one or some of the members, while still staying in the same kagai. That might be a plausible reason for bigger kagai, but for such a small kagai as Gion Higashi, with just 20 members, no matter what okiya you’re affiliated with, you’ll have a hard time avoiding one or even several people because you’ll be forced to work together all the time. So I think that this reason is pretty implausible.

2. Another reason would be that Kanowaka’s Erikae from Okatome was planned for a while, but that she chose her mind, and while absent for two months, changed it again. I also think that that is highly implausible, as any okiya would see her as untrustworthy after that, I can’t imagine that Kanoya would have let her in after such a stunt. Maybe something private happened that forced her to retire for a short while, but I just can’t think of any reason that would force her to do that.

3. Okatome didn’t think she was ready to become a Geiko, so Kanoya accepted her. I also don’t think that’s very plausible, as Kanowaka expressed desire to become a Geiko early on, she was a good student and while she was never famous, she was certainly always successful enough. Why lose out on her? And also, I could imagine that it would strain the relationship between Okatome and Kanoya if Okatome didn’t want Kanowaka to become a Geiko, and then Kanoya took her in. Why risk that?

4. Okatome couldn’t afford her Erikae. It isn’t totally unusual for okiya to not be able to afford Erikae, especially in small kagai, and some okiya also rely on Maiko-only-contracts, but for Okatome, this seems to make little sense. At the time, they were Gion Higasi’s biggest okiya and they still are, and they had enough money to debut Fumine in October of 2017. 

When you compare Okatome’s history of Misedashi and Erikae with that of some other okiya of Gion Higashi, it seems like Okatome is one of the okiya in Gion Higashi best equipped to finance and help a young Geiko. This is still more plausible than option 1 in my opinion, though.

5. Kanoya wanted a new Geiko. Before Kanowaka switched okiya, Kanoya only had one Geiko affiliated with them, Jikata Geiko Miyako. Other than that, they hadn’t had a Geiko for decades, if I remember correctly, only ever Maiko. They seem to have worked with Maiko-only-contracts for a long time, and their financial situation probably wasn’t the greatest for a while.

Kanowaka’s situation might have been convenient for Kanoya: They got a new, young Geiko, but didn’t have to pay for the high cost of an Erikae. Kanowaka also already had an established reputation and client-base, so even though she got a new name, she didn’t have to be entirely “relaunched”. Also, if they had debuted an entirely new Geiko, both Jikata or Tachikata, they would have had to pay for at least a full year of her lessons while she was still a Shikomi.

Also, they didn’t have to wait any longer for Kanohiro, their most senior Maiko, to become old enough to become a Geiko. She has only been active for 3 years and 3 months, so she does still have at least 1 more year as a Maiko. Also, for all that we know right now, Kanohiro might also want to quit at the end of her Maiko-stage, the decision is up to her.

This might be a sign that Kanoya is trying to slowly change the way it is operating. And of course, most okiya want their girls to be able to have their Erikae and stay for as long as they want to, but for some okiya is just isn’t possible sometimes, and Gion Higashi has only been able to recover financially a bit over the last decade or so. Kanowaka might be the onee-san to Kanoya’s new Maiko, and it’s always good for okiya to have their own Geiko their Maiko can look up to and learn from.

However, for Kanowaka (her seniority was completely reset after all) and Okatome to accept that offer, there had to be some kind of reason, they wouldn’t just lose out on a promising young Geiko for nothing. So, money might have also played a role on Okatome’s behalf as well in the end. And I don’t mean that Kanoya bribed them or anything outrageous like that, maybe they really didn’t have the money for an Erikae for some reason.

I don’t think that this is because of a scandal though, because if Kanowaka would have been involved in some kind of scandal, she wouldn’t have been allowed to work in Gion Higashi any longer at all. So, it must be something that happened behind the scenes that we just don’t know about (yet). It is very confusing and puzzling though, to say the least.

What’s also weird is that I found a picture of the nameplates at Kanoya, which display the active Geiko and Maiko of an okiya in order of seniority, and Kanowaka’s name is before Kanohiro’s (It goes Miyako -> Kanowaka -> Kanohiro -> Kanotomo). 

Fukuharu/Kanowaka’s timeline:

1)2012, misedashi, (Source)

2)2012, first-year, (Source)

3)2013, second-year, (Source)

4/2014, third-year, (Source)

5)2015, fourth-year, (Source)

6)2016, fifth-year, (Source)

April 2017: maiko Fukuharu among cherry blossom by  kyoto_maiko on Instagram

Fukuharu now works as a geiko Kanowaka!

New blog is up! Visit HERE  🌟 🌟 🌟

So she was around for Hassaku, I didn’t see any pictures of her at all! Granted, I didn’t see many pictures of Hassaku in Gion Higashi in general.