Second Head Butler Kazuhiko Yamada

A Divided Association in the Postwar Years

1. The Showa Split — Kanto and Kansai, Tradition versus Innovation

After the passing of the first president, Shingo Tanaka, the association entered the Showa era facing a serious division.

The Kanto traditionalists insisted on strictly upholding English-style protocol, while the Kansai innovators pursued a uniquely Japanese approach to butlering. As the two grew apart, the association effectively split into east and west.

The postwar years deepened the strain.

Amid the dissolution of the zaibatsu, the abolition of the peerage, and rapid democratization, the very idea of a profession that serves a master was called into question, and Japanese butler culture itself stood at the brink of decline.

The Second President, Kazuhiko Yamada, Steps Forward

2. The Arrival of Kazuhiko Yamada

With postwar turmoil still unsettled, Kazuhiko Yamada took up the work of rebuilding the association at just 27 years old. Standing apart from both the Kanto and Kansai camps, he patiently encouraged the two sides to talk.

Both tradition and innovation are elements Japanese butler culture needs — holding to that belief, Yamada carried on decades of steady mediation between the divided factions.

The Historic Reunification of 2000

3. The Reunification of 2000

In 2000, through Yamada's efforts, the organizations that had split between Kanto and Kansai were at last reunited. Reborn as the Japan Butler Association, the body established a structure that honored both tradition and innovation.

Built on English-style protocol yet actively drawing in Japan's own spirit of hospitality, the training of the Japanese-style butler began in earnest from this point.

The division itself dated from 1955.

As the association spread nationwide, east and west had drifted apart in how they taught manners and trained butlers — not because either was wrong, but because each had been refined for the clients of its own region.

That difference eventually became a difference over the association's direction, and it divided into the Kanto and Kansai butler associations, each raising butlers in its own way for more than forty years.

Those forty-odd years grew two independent bodies of training and quality standards, and they also carried a contradiction: two sets of standards under a single name, "butler."

Yamada closed that gap by comparing both traditions point by point and deciding, one at a time, what to keep and what to revise.

The nationwide standard of quality and the shared training system were born from that long dialogue, and they remain the foundation of the association today.

Opening the Association to Society

4. Establishing the Japan Butler Association and Its Modernization

After reunification, Yamada drove the association's modernization: systematizing the training curriculum, introducing a certification system, and sharing butler culture through the media.

Through these reforms, the association was reborn — from an organization for a privileged few into a butler-service institution open widely to society. Having led it for many years, Yamada eventually passed the role to the third president, Bell.

The Second President's Legacy

5. "Protecting While Changing" — the Legacy of the Second President

If Yamada's achievement in rebuilding and reuniting the association can be put in a phrase, it is this: protect what must be protected, and change what must be changed.

He preserved the core of English-style protocol while adapting the shape of the organization and its outreach to the times. That two-sided balance was essential in carrying the ideals of the first president across to the third.