General Grant, former President of the United States, visited the Shintomi-za during his stay in Japan in 1879. It was a proud moment for Kanya when, attired in the new Japanese badge of respectability, a frock coat, and accompanied by Danjuro similarly clad, they stepped out before the curtain and thanked Grant for honouring the theatre with his presence, and for the gift of a red curtain that he had presented to the manager. But the height of Kanya’s Western intoxication was reached when he invited a Frenchwoman to sing, and English and American actors to play in the Shintomi-za. In this Kanya showed little insight, for the audience could not understand the Western entertainers, and the venture ended in a serious loss to the theatre. Hence Kanya’s enthusiasm for reform cooled, and he turned to Danjuro, Kikugoro, and Sadanji as his only hope. Kanya had been at the head of theatre affairs in Tokyo for so long that he received a shock when he heard of a project to launch a new theatre, the Kabuki-za, which was to be the largest and finest ever built in Japan. He started an opposition movement, concluded an alliance of four Tokyo theatres, and bound the chief actors to stay with him. The greatest theatre in Japan was the plan of Fukuchi, who ranked with Mokuami as a playwright. When the theatre was completed, Fukuchi went to Danjuro and Kikugoro, to invite them to play in the Kabuki-za, but they refused, as they had pledged themselves to Kanya. Fukuchi was surprised at the tactics of the Shintomi-za manager, but pretended not to be disappointed, joked, and said he would have to paint his face and dance in their stead. But the best theatre and the best actors could not long remain apart. The shrewd Kanya, seeing an advantage to himself, at last consented to lend the three stars provided he was given a certain large sum. This was agreed upon, and his actors appeared at the opening performances of the Kabuki-za, which were a pronounced success from the start, while Kanya was enabled to pay off his pressing debts. Morita Kanya, the twelfth, died in 1897, after a strenuous life spent in trying to improve the theatre, leaving behind him nothing but a legacy of bankruptcy to his three young sons. He has been described as a man of extremes, proud one minute, humble the next. Sometimes he treated the actors as though they were his own children, and again regarded them as his enemies. Prosperity and failure were his portions. A newspaper writer, commenting upon Kanya, likened him to a long-tailed pheasant pleased with its plumes that stood beside a river looking at its reflection, and at last fell in and was drowned.