The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (舞妓さんちのまかないさん) is a Japanese television series based on the manga Kiyo in Kyoto about contemporary life in a geisha house. The series stars Nana Mori, Natsuki Deguchi, and Aju Makita, and was released by Netflix on January 12, 2023. Hirokazu Kore-eda served as director, writer, and showrunner, The Makanai being his first time directing a Netflix production.
Contents
Background
The series is based on the manga Kiyo in Kyoto, which ran from 2016 to 2025 and was adapted into a 12-episode TV anime series in 2021.
Plot
Best friends Kiyo (Mori) and Sumire (Deguchi) move from their hometown in northern Aomori to Kyoto's Gion district to live in an all-female house of geiko and maiko with dreams of becoming geiko themselves. Though Sumire is hailed as an exemplary talent, Kiyo is deemed unfit to become a maiko but soon finds her unexpected calling as their live-in cook.
Cast
Nana Mori as Kiyo, a would-be maiko applicant from Aomori who is rejected for the role but ends up cooking for the Saku House
Natsuki Deguchi as Sumire/Momohana, Kiyo's long-time companion and best friend who succeeds in becoming a maiko
Aju Makita as Ryoko, Mother Azusa's daughter who also lives in the Saku House
Takako Tokiwa as Mother Azusa, the co-proprietor of the Saku House
Keiko Matsuzaka as Mother Chiyo, the co-proprietor of the Saku House
Ai Hashimoto as Momoko, a veteran geiko who takes in Sumire as her apprentice
Mayu Matsuoka as Yoshino, a former geiko who returns to the Saku House to resume her career after divorcing her husband
Momoko Fukuchi as Tsurukoma, a maiko at the Saku House who quits the profession at the end of the series
Lily Franky as Mr. Ren, the bartender
Kotona Minami as Kotono, fellow maiko
Production
Kore-eda directed the first two episodes, with the remaining seven directed by Megumi Tsuno, Hiroshi Okuyama, and Takuma Sato.
Depictions of geisha
Previous portrayals of geisha and their milieu, such as Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha and its film adaptation, have been criticised for conflating geisha culture with a form of "highly-stylized prostitution". The popularity of the film led to a surge in tourists in the geisha districts of Kyoto, instances of harassment of geisha in public, and a 2019 ban of photographing geisha implemented by the Gion geisha district. Kore-eda commented that the series might dispel some inaccurate beliefs perpetuated by Memoirs, such as maiko being sold by their parents. However, Kiyo's work as a makanai, the in-house cook and helper, is also unrealistic; there are no teenage makanai.
