If, hypothetically, we use the term "original" to refer to the first shape or form, it seems that few performers and scholars of Japanese traditional performing arts have considered the "original" (the form of the play as it was first performed) as the ideal form to be attaired (or achieved). The reality of the transmission of traditional performing arts differs from one form of art to another. This paper will focus on the case of Bunraku puppet plays.
  The history of Bunraku puppet plays began in 1684. The oldest work in the present-day repertoire was performed around 1710. The Bunraku stage consists of two elements - the joruri which involves narrators and <em>shamisen</em> players and the puppet performance conducted by puppeteers. Changes in both the performance of the accompanying joruri and the handling of the puppets have continued from the inception of the dramatic form to the present-day. In terms of musical scores, even now, there is no standard score notation method for the narrator. This method is handed down by oral tradition. There are scores for the <em>shamisen</em>, but the notation system used for those scores was not standardized until the 1800s. It is natural to consider that essential musical elements of joruri have changed in the process of their transmission through history, and in fact, there is considerable evidence of such change.
  Regarding the puppet performance, the present-day Bunraku puppets representing principal roles are each manipulated by three handlers. However, such puppets were controlled by a single handler in the early period. According to a popular theory, the three-person handling began in 1734. Further, they say that at the beginning of the use of these three-handler puppets, there was a mixture of single-handler puppets and three-handler puppets used, depending on the scene being enacted. While there is no set date at which all principal puppets were manipulated by three handlers, it is presumed that this only dates back as far as the latter half of the 1700s. It is also thought that the changes in puppet handling methods affected the musical side of the performances. When a play that was first performed during the single puppet handler period was later performed in the 1800s, the movements of the three handlers meant that there had to be adjustments made to the phrasing of the joruri music. However, since the scores do not remain, the details of these changes, or even the degree of changes made, are not known.
  The puppeteers in Bunraku have developed and improved the three-handler techniques over the years to realize life-like movements by the puppets. Similarly, the narrator and <em>shamisen</em> players have refined verses and tunes in various ways as they perform them over and over again. Thus the performance of the Bunraku puppet plays that continues to appeal to today's audience is a result of all those many efforts. Indeed, the majority of the works from the 1700s were first performed with single handlers. Undoubtedly the score phrasing differed from that being sung today. That being the case, there are no Bunraku performers who consider returning either the joruri or the doll handling to their earliest forms. And surely there is no one in the audience who seeks such a step back into the past.
  Of course, there is an aspect of traditional performing arts in Bunraku. Nevertheless, each time performing arts are performed, they do not reenact the exact performance as staged before. New tricks and nuances emerge as the work is performed over and over again. When those nuances are brought to the next performance, decisions are made about their success or failure, and there are cases where they are then discarded and replaced with yet another new nuance. Performing arts change in tandem with the styles and trends of each passing age, and yet they still remain alive as classics. The tricks, nuances and changes accumulated by our predecessors are sifted through and then handed down from master to disciple to the present-day. The constantly changing leading edge of this entirety is the form of traditional performing arts we see today.