I found this very nice obituary article on Japanese puppet trick film master Kawamoto Kihachiro on this BLOG “ANGURA!”, read it here:

http://angura.tumblr.com/post/1020181527/kihachiro-kawamoto-passes

“… Chikamastu Monzaemon the famous Bunraku playwright says, ‘a certain something in the slender margin between the real and the unreal.’…”

please also read the following interview with him by Jasper Sharp from 2004, six years before his death, when he was creating his animation “The Book of the Dead / 死者の書 (2005)”

Kawamoto Kihachiro 川本 喜八郎 “The Book of the Dead – 死者の書 “ (2005)

http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/kihachiro-kawamoto/

“… actually the first time I really ever understood what a puppet was, I was already over 40 years old. This was when I went to Czechoslovakia and met Jiri Trnka, who taught me a lot. He opened my eyes and only then did I begin to understand everything there was about the puppet world.   …

Dolls are children’s toys, or things you dress up and display. Puppets, or marionettes, are things that act. This is a crucial difference. There’s no such thing as doll animation.

When I started, I was making dolls. I started making puppets at around the age of 25. At this age I met Tadasu Iizawa, and we formed a group making puppet storybooks, illustrated books featuring puppets. Even though these were really dolls, I call them puppets because they were actors within the books. During that time I was working with Tadasu Iizawa, I first saw the work of the puppet animator Jiri Trnka, and that was a major influence.

… “

To see “The Book of Dead / 死者の書 “ please click this link (with Spanish subtitles):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XezBnw7dFvc