Abstract
For Japanese culture, the arrival of silent films was not as quiet as it was in other parts of the world: screenings were unavoidably accompanied by katsudô benshi. Since they date back to traditional performing arts, they have existed for more than a thousand years. They were storytellers who, after years of training, narrated what was happening on stage or on screen to the audience; they achieved incredible fame and glory. In order to understand why this phenomenon was so successful, it is necessary to comprehend how important the art of narration is in Japan. In this article, the connection between these elements is analyzed, as well as the key for its appearance and the significance of benshi within Japanese mass culture.
