The Kaomise was generally held in November with the inauguration of new theatrical season. At this time the actors prayed for the peace of the country and a bountiful harvest. Elaborate preparations were made. The night before many gay lanterns were seen on the theatre streets, even before the smallest and most insignificant of buildings. The actors’ residences as well as the shibai tea-houses were bright with crested lanterns, and large ones were placed at the entrance to the theatre and on each side of the actors’ dressing-rooms. It was a veritable feast of lanterns. At this time the actors who had been engaged for the season were announced. It meant a new combination of players, for Kyoto and Osaka yakusha would come to Yedo, and _vice versa_. The playwrights and musicians who were to serve the theatre for the ensuing year were also secured, and proper announcements made during the Kaomise, as well as the forthcoming plays, whether newly written or old favourites in a new guise. In the Kaomise ceremony the actors came to the stage by turns, and addressing the audience in an intimate way told what characters they would play, that they were glad to see the audience, and asked for their favour. This took up a great deal of time, but the occasion was gay and pleasant, and formed a fitting beginning to the theatre season. On the first day there was no charge for admission, and after the actors had introduced themselves special plays were performed. Details of the Kaomise differed in the three towns, and varied according to the taste of the actors, who improvised to suit their own fancy. In Osaka, according to the _Kokon Yakusha Taizen_, the Kaomise was given seven times in succession, beginning in the evening and terminating in the small hours of the next day. Lanterns festooned the Dotombori, Osaka’s chief theatre street, bearing the crests of the leading actors. Gifts to the actors consisting of tubs of sake, bales of rice, dried fish, etc., were piled up so high as to reach the drum-tower. Playgoers came in boats by way of the Dotombori canal, the town being transected, then as now, by innumerable waterways. The author declares that the Osaka Kaomise was superior in attractions to similar ceremonies in Yedo or Kyoto, and that the scene was so fine that words could not be found to give it adequate description.