Chikamatsu Monzaemon was the Shakespeare of Japan. His influence on modern Japanese theater was significant. He was born with the name Sugimori Nobumori to a samurai family in 1653. His father served a daimyo lord who was a medical doctor. When his father lost his master, he became a ronin and their family moved to Kyoto to work as a page for a noble family. Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote his first puppet play in 1683 about the Soga brothers. This led as a springboard into his career as a playwright. Between the years 1684 and 1695 he focused on writing Kabuki plays. His writings included historical romances as well as domestic tragedies. In his lifetime, he wrote over 30 Kabuki plays and 110 puppet plays called joruri. Most of the plays he wrote were double suicides, the suicide of a husband and a wife. Many of his plays were created to be performed by the then famous actor Sakat Tojuro. After 1705 though, for an unknown reason, he stopped writing for Kabuki plays. Historians believe that it may be due to Sakat Tojuro growing older, the fact that puppets were easier to use, or that puppets were more popular than live action entertainment. While Chikamatsu Monzaemon exemplified the professional writer of his time, he was the first Japanese playwright to not act in his own plays.