Departures of note

Aoki Nobuhiro was a Japanese writer and businessman who founded Rakugo Cafe, a cafe with a stage for rakugo and other performing arts, in the Kanda Jimbocho book district of Tokyo in 2009. The venue hosted performances on nearly a daily basis and became a well-known gathering place in the rakugo world. He devoted himself to nurturing young rakugo performers and to building a hub that broadened the audience for traditional performing arts. In 2019, to mark the cafe's tenth anniversary, he organized a commemorative rakugo performance at Nippon Budokan. He died of heart failure on October 3, 2026, at the age of 56.