Heian

One day last month, it took Hiroshi Ban six hours — twice as long as usual — to visit Kyoto’s Heian Jingu shrine.

Katano hopes the play will appeal to diverse audiences, from those who’ve never heard of the Heian period to Japanese people revisiting high school history.

According to W magazine, the hime cut can be traced to the Heian Period in Japan, beginning around the ninth century.

Along with plum, appreciation of sakura also grew in the Heian period in a form of poetry known as waka.

The book lays forth the episodic conquests of the “shining prince” Genji, a futon-hopping Don Juan drifting through the floating world of Heian Japan, an elaborate courtly demimonde that makes the marriage maneuvers of Jane Austen’s novels seem off-the-cuff by comparison.