The Makanai vs. Real Life: How Maiko Really Live in Kyoto

We operate the Maiko & Zen Kyoto experience mentioned in this guide.

Netflix's The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House is set in a house where maiko live together in Kyoto. The series is fiction, but its setting is real: maiko do live in a shared house while they train. Here is what the series is based on, and what the Kyoto Traditional Musical Art Foundation and real maiko say about daily life.

About the Series

• Release: January 12, 2023, worldwide on Netflix; 9 episodes, rated 13+.
• Creator: Hirokazu Kore-eda is the showrunner, director, and writer.
• Source: Aiko Koyama's manga Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san, published by Shogakukan in Weekly Shonen Sunday.
• Story: two friends from Aomori move to Kyoto hoping to become maiko. Sumire becomes a maiko, while Kiyo finds her calling as the makanai, the cook for the house where the maiko live.
• Cast: Nana Mori plays Kiyo and Natsuki Deguchi plays Sumire.

What the Series Gets Right

The basic setting matches how maiko really live. According to the foundation:

• Trainees and maiko live together in an okiya, also called a yakata, with the house's "mother" and senior sisters.
• New girls spend about a year as shikomi, helping in the house and learning etiquette, the speech of the district, and dance, before about a month of minarai and their debut.
• Training is strict. A Miyagawacho maiko interviewed by the foundation describes demanding lessons in dance, shamisen, and percussion, and says the okiya mother she sees every day matters a great deal to her.

What Real Days Look Like

The drama centers on the house, but the day the foundation describes also includes work outside it. Evening banquets begin around 6:00 pm almost every night, and bedtime often comes after midnight. Before the evening, the afternoon is her own for a nap, reading, or practice, once lessons such as dance at the district's training school or theater end around midday or early afternoon. Her morning starts between about 8:00 and 10:00 am with breakfast. Our guide to what geisha and maiko do follows a working day in more detail.

The path continues for years: it takes five to six years of training in dance, shamisen, music, song, tea ceremony, and etiquette before a maiko becomes a geiko. A Pontocho geiko interviewed by the foundation recalls that her first three months of shikomi were a trial period of household chores, before dance lessons began, and that she served six years as a maiko.

Each of Kyoto's five geisha districts has its own customs, so some details described here may differ from one district to another.

Who Cooks in a Real Okiya?

The series centers on a live-in cook. We could not find an official source describing how meals are prepared in real okiya, so we do not generalize. What the foundation does say is that maiko eat breakfast after waking and have a late lunch after their morning lessons, either back at the okiya or out with fellow maiko. For the food side of the story, read what maiko eat.

Becoming a Maiko Today

Girls can begin only after finishing junior high school; in the past, starting at 10 or 13 was not unusual. The foundation accepts inquiries from girls interested in becoming maiko and introduces applicants to an okiya for the year of shikomi. For the full path, read what geisha actually do.

Meet a real maiko. We operate Maiko & Zen Kyoto, a 90-minute session at Ikka-in, a sub-temple of Tofuku-ji, where a maiko dances in the same temple hall with no stage between you, then takes time to answer your questions about her life. See current session times and prices.

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