Iida City Kawamoto Kihachiro Puppet Museum, Puppet and doll museum in Iida, Japan

The Iida City Kawamoto Kihachiro Puppet Museum occupies the second and third floors of a three-story reinforced-concrete building connected to the Iida Shinkin Bank head office. Its paid exhibition rooms on the third floor display about 200 puppets, 60 to 80 of them from the NHK series 'Puppet Theater Romance of the Three Kingdoms', alongside figures from 'The Tale of the Heike' and Kawamoto's puppet animations. A 110 cm figure of Zhuge Liang stands in the entrance zone on the second floor.

Kihachiro Kawamoto first came to Iida in 1990 for a performance of his NHK puppet series Romance of the Three Kingdoms at the city's puppet carnival. He later donated the puppets from that series and from the Puppet History Spectacle Tale of the Heike to Iida, which he called the most fitting home for them. The city built the museum as a centre for its puppet-theatre culture; Kawamoto became its director and it opened on 25 March 2007.

Kawamoto first came to Iida in 1990 for a performance of his NHK puppet drama Romance of the Three Kingdoms at the city's puppet carnival, now the Iida Puppet Festa. Moved by a town with a long puppet-theatre tradition, he donated the puppets used in that series and in the Heike Monogatari puppet history spectacle, calling Iida the most fitting home for them. The museum keeps that link to the annual festival.

The museum sits within walking distance of Iida Station and closes only on Wednesdays, making it easy to fit into most schedules. Give yourself time to study the displays closely, as the craftsmanship and construction details reward careful observation.

About 200 puppets are on display at a time, 60 to 80 of them from the NHK series "Puppet Theater Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (1982-1984), and the selection is rotated periodically. In the second-floor entrance zone stands a 110 cm figure of Zhuge Liang; at opening it was Guan Yu. The third floor holds the paid galleries.