At the Slanted Hut: Ei Rokusuke and the Seventy Years After the War

At the Slanted Hut: Ei Rokusuke and the Seventy Years After the War

Rokusuke Ei was born in 1929 at a temple in Asakusa, Tokyo, and grew up in the midst of the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake and the beginning of the Showa period. The atmosphere of the temple town was full of a peculiar dampness and fervor, where popular entertainment and religion coexisted. His father was a priest. Ei, however, was not content to live inside the temple town, but always kept an eye on society from an oblique perspective.

After rising from the rubble of the postwar era, Ei went to university and, while associating with poets such as Eroshenko and Masamichi Takatsu, became neither an activist nor a scholar, but took up the "expression of voice" in broadcasting. At a time of rapid economic growth, when people were dazzled by affluence, Ei continued to capture the words of ordinary people, transform them into laughter and satire, and transmit them.

He was not happy with power for no reason"-this was the spirit that ran through the alleyways of Asakusa. His opposition to the Vietnam War, anti-nuclear power, and his sympathy for civic movements did not come from within the garb of a religious figure, but rather from the side. Rokusuke Ei continued to quietly illuminate the landscape of the 70 years since the end of the war between the ground and the broadcasting tower.