Matsuyo Akimoto

was a leading playwright of postwar Japan, most respected as a realist Japanese playwright. Akimoto was known for her shingeki plays, but also wrote some classical bunraku (puppet) and kabuki dramas, and she later became a scriptwriter for both radio and television shows. Along with Akimoto's childhood, World War II played a significant role in her career. As a realist playwright, she used her work to make political statements in order to warn the greater Japanese community that the government was trying to continue their pre-war imperial system of capitalism, militarism, and patriarchy.

When Akimoto was age three, her father died. In addition to her father's death at a young age, she was diagnosed with pleurisy when she was in the third grade. Due to Akimoto's fatigue from her illness and her family's belief in traditional gender roles, the family did not see the need for Akimoto to extend her education, so she attended public school for the minimum number of years required.

She gained inspiration to be a part of the literary field from reading western Greek tragedies, Ibsen's modern plays, Japanese noh plays, and Chikamatsu Monzaemon's jōruri during her childhood. Not only did Miyoshi encourage Akimoto to write professionally, but he also inspired her. While, Akimoto disregarded comments that pertained to her as a disciple of Miyoshi, she was nevertheless influenced by his works of humanism, communism, and nationalism.

"I want to use dialect in such a way that when hearing the dialogue, any person from the above areas will feel that is the language of their area…I feel that is a form of dialogue that people from Tokyo and other areas far away can understand and relate to" - Akimoto

However, in her later plays she strayed from her realists approach and switched to a shamaness style that incorporated dark poetry in order to capture her vision on how she saw the Japanese community of her time. This can be seen in her award-winning masterpiece Kaison of Priest of Hitachi (1967 translated 1988) where the dialogue was used to present Japan's postwar culture. Her interest in human suffering and her compassion for those who suffer no doubt reflected her own experience as a child. Redemption is a consistent theme in all of Akimoto's works that in any play you will find that the main character is searching for some way to release themselves and others from what is holding them back from their quest. Many of Akimoto's main characters encounter either a social, political, or religious entity to guide them in their quest for redemption, but one of these systems obstructs them from doing so. By shining light on Japan's government through these types of references in her plays Akimoto was able to warn the Japanese community that the government does not want them to find redemption, but wanted their support in their pre-war empire efforts.