Yuichi Ishii official site
YUICHI ISHII OFFICIAL SITE
Behind the name Butler Bell stands Yuichi Ishii, actor and entrepreneur. The lead in a film shown at an international festival, a lecture at a university abroad, a book.
Here is the other face of the person who leads the association, traced from the learner side.
PROFILE
The other face of Butler Bell
The man behind the butler
A career as actor and businessman
The Yuichi Ishii official site gathers the career, as actor and entrepreneur, of Yuichi Ishii, who leads the association and known also as Butler Bell. Born in 1981, he started Family Romance Inc.
in 2004 and has continued the family stand-in business as founder, and he remains its representative director today.
2019, the year that marked the turn
2019 was a turning point. He played himself in the lead of Family Romance, LLC by the German director Werner Herzog, and the film screened in the Directors Fortnight at the 72nd edition of the Cannes festival.
The same year he was invited to speak at a Harvard conference and received the Glass Award.
What each of the two sites is for
He is the author of a book on the human rental business (Tetsujinsha, 2019). Where the Butler Bell site tells of Ishii the butler, this site tells of the Ishii who stands outside the role of butler.
FOUR THREADS
Actor, entrepreneur, speaker, author: four threads
Four strands of one career
The activities on the official site sorted into four threads, each of which in the end forms part of the outline of the person who leads the association.
As an actor
He took the lead in the 2019 Family Romance, LLC, the film by Werner Herzog. The person he played was Yuichi Ishii himself. The film was selected for the Directors Fortnight at the 72nd edition of the Cannes festival.
As an entrepreneur
He founded Family Romance Inc. in 2004 and still leads the family stand-in business as its representative director, the person who settled in Japanese society a concept it had not had.
As a speaker
In 2019 he took the stage at a conference held at Harvard University, the Harvard Global Health and Leadership Conference, and spoke about what the family stand-in means for society. The lecture received the Glass Award.
As an author
He wrote a book on the human rental business (Tetsujinsha, 2019), bringing together the relationships between people he has seen on the front line of stand-in work.
ON SCREEN
A film in which he played himself: Family Romance, LLC
Playing himself for Werner Herzog
Starring as himself
In 2019 Yuichi Ishii took the lead, as himself, in Family Romance, LLC, the film by Werner Herzog. The film screened in the Directors Fortnight at the 72nd edition of the Cannes festival.
Businessman and actor in one frame
Taking the family stand-in business as its subject just as it is, the film was the moment when Ishii the entrepreneur and Ishii the actor became one. Information on the work is on the official site.
Carrying the culture into public view
For a student, the fact that the head of the association is also the lead actor of a film shown at an international festival is one example of how far the association work of conveying butler culture to society can reach.
ON STAGE
Speaking about the family stand-in from a Harvard stage
The lecture and the Glass Award
A lecture at Harvard
In 2019 Yuichi Ishii took the stage at the Harvard Global Health and Leadership Conference, held at Harvard University, and spoke about what the family stand-in business means for society. The lecture was awarded the Glass Award.
Taken up in an academic setting abroad
That the idea of a business that stands in the gap between people was taken up in an academic setting abroad is one of the larger events in his path.
Why the range of activity matters
His writing as Butler Bell, his work as head of the association, and lectures like this one.
Knowing the breadth of his activity is also useful when thinking about the academy goal of establishing the butler in society as a profession assessed against explicit criteria.
TIMELINE
The chronology recorded on the official site
Milestones in order
The events on the official site, arranged in four entries in order of time.
- 01
1981
Yuichi Ishii is born.
- 02
2004
He founds Family Romance Inc. and starts the family stand-in business, one that Japan had not had before.
- 03
2019
Lead role, as himself, in Family Romance, LLC (Cannes, 72nd edition, Directors Fortnight). A lecture at a Harvard conference and the Glass Award. Publication of his book (Tetsujinsha).
- 04
As head of the association
While conveying butler culture on YouTube and elsewhere as Butler Bell, he leads the association that is the academy parent body.
FROM THE CLASSROOM
From a closed world to an open profession
Making a profession visible
Rooting the work as a profession
The goal of the academy is to root the butler in society as a profession assessed against explicit criteria. Polishing skill in the classroom is not enough for that; the work of the butler itself has to be known and understood by the public.
Standing in public settings at home and abroad
The head of the association has stood before media and academic audiences at home and abroad, through the lead in a film and a lecture at an overseas conference.
That overlaps with the direction the association has taken, moving butler culture from a closed world towards an open profession. His writing as Butler Bell and the activity gathered on this site face the same way.
How the skill you learn is spoken about
We would like students to keep an eye also on how the skills they are learning are received and spoken of in society. The Yuichi Ishii official site is one window onto that.
WHY WE INTRODUCE IT
Yuichi Ishii, seen from the academy
The person behind the association
President, and a public voice
Yuichi Ishii heads the body behind the academy, and as Butler Bell he conveys butler culture on YouTube and elsewhere. His full career as actor and entrepreneur can be read on the official site.
A record that places the work as a profession
His path, taken up by media in Japan and abroad, runs in the same direction as the academy ideal of establishing the butler in society as a profession judged by standards.
Read the two sites together
To know Ishii the butler, read the Butler Bell site; to know Ishii the actor and entrepreneur, read this one. Read together, the two bring the whole figure of the person leading the association into view.
The poster of Family Romance, LLC (official site)
TWO SITES
Reading the Butler Bell site and this one
Which site for what
Three notes on how to tell apart the two official sites of one person.
The Butler Bell official site
His activity as head of the association and as a butler: his writing about the butler, Butler Wisdom, lectures and training, media work, and the book.
The Yuichi Ishii official site
His career as actor and entrepreneur: Family Romance, LLC, the Harvard lecture and the Glass Award, his book, and the founding of Family Romance.
The link to the academy
Both sites are clues to the person who runs the organization behind the academy, and material for thinking about how far the profession of the butler can reach in society.
GLOSSARY
Four words for reading the official site
Four terms from the official site
A site about an actor and entrepreneur uses words unfamiliar to students at a butler school. Four are worth knowing.
As himself
The role Yuichi Ishii played in Family Romance, LLC: not a fictional character but himself.
Directors Fortnight
A section of the Cannes Film Festival. Family Romance, LLC screened there at the 72nd edition.
Glass Award
The award given in 2019 for his lecture at a conference at Harvard University.
His book
Published by Tetsujinsha in 2019, gathering the relationships between people he has seen on the front line of stand-in work.
READING THE SITE
Start with the actor pages, or the entrepreneur pages?
Two ways into the site
The site separates his work as an actor from his work as an entrepreneur.
For someone learning to be a butler we suggest the entrepreneur pages first, the founding of Family Romance and its thinking, because that is where the way the association head has worked is written.
The actor pages read differently afterwards. The lead in a film and lectures abroad are also a record of how the family stand-in was received in Japan and overseas. Read them against the association direction of opening butler culture to society.
To know Yuichi Ishii as a butler, go not to this site but to the Butler Bell official site. Moving between the two brings the whole figure of the head into view.
FROM THE INSTRUCTORS
When the instructors speak of the head path
When instructors mention the head
Academy instructors touch on his career as actor and entrepreneur when they talk about opening the profession to society.
The work of a butler tends to stay inside a closed world; that the head has stood in the outside world through film and lectures is an encouragement to students.
Instructors also point to what acting and butlering share: making the scene another person wants come true without putting yourself forward.
Even the unusual experience of appearing in a film as himself comes down, in the end, to quietly taking on the role that is asked for.
They are not asking students to copy his career. What they want to convey is that the butler mindset holds outside the classroom, and his path is told as one piece of evidence.
COMMON MISREADINGS
What readers often assume about him
Reading the site without tripping
The first is that Butler Bell and Yuichi Ishii are different people. They are the same: Butler Bell is his name as a butler, Yuichi Ishii his name as actor and entrepreneur.
The second is that the head does only butler work. He is at the same time representative director of Family Romance and active as an actor. Which face you look at decides which site to read.
The third is that you can engage a butler or book a lecture through the official site. Butler requests go to THE BUTLER; lectures, training and media requests go to the Butler Bell site. The official site is mainly a record of career and works.
ACTING AND SERVING
How close acting and service are, and how far apart
Same observation, opposite direction
Is a butler acting?
Introducing the acting side always produces one question from learners: is a butler's work acting? The instructors' answer is firm. Only the observation is close; the purpose is entirely different.
What is close is the sense of timing
What is close is the technique of reading another person's breathing and timing and fitting your own movement to it. On a stage or in a reception room, moving too far ahead looks unnatural and arriving late breaks the flow.
In how that timing is rehearsed, the two really do resemble each other.
What is far is who the movement is for
What is far apart is who the movement is for. Acting is built to be seen; a butler's movement is pared down so as not to be. One is made on the assumption of being watched, the other aims at going unnoticed.
Seeing the same faculty of observation used in opposite directions sharpens the outline of the work.
ON BEING SEEN
Experience of visible work returns to invisible work
Why reducing the gaze is the service
Someone who has done visible work
Someone who has done work that is watched and recorded, in film and on lecture platforms, leads a profession defined by staying out of sight. That combination alone gives learners something to think about.
Instructors often put it as: having stood on the visible side is what makes the burden of being watched legible.
Reducing the gaze is itself the hospitality
From a client's point of view, another person inside the house means being watched, simply by itself. Butlers rehearse making their presence recede not out of modesty but to release the other person from that state.
Reducing the gaze is itself part of what the hospitality consists of.
What holding both sides means
Work that stands in front of people, and work that removes people's gaze. Holding both within one career shows how deliberately this profession chooses to go unnoticed. We want learners to locate their own position through that contrast.
A SECOND LOOK
Knowing the other face changes how class sounds
A window for looking back in
How the lessons land differently
Learners sometimes tell us that this site changed how they take the lessons, because it shows that the words heard in class were not assembled inside the butler world alone.
Someone who walked through other fields chose these manners and kept them: knowing that, the same sentences carry differently.
So that tradition is not where thinking stops
Parts of the training are hard to justify beyond saying that it has always been so, and being told that a thing is tradition is where most people stop thinking.
The fact that someone who knows other disciplines chose the same shape gives learners a reason to work out the why for themselves.
Look from outside, then come back
What matters on the learning side is not swallowing what you are taught whole. This site is introduced as a window for looking at the profession from outside.
Come back into the classroom after looking in through it, and the same practice should look entirely different.
The Yuichi Ishii official site
His career as actor and entrepreneur and information on his work are on the official site. For his activity as a butler see the Butler Bell official site, and for learning to be a butler see the course guide on this site.
getstage.com — External site, opens in a new window
FAQ
Questions and answers
What people ask us
Head of the association, who conveys butler culture as Butler Bell. He also founded Family Romance Inc., serves as its representative director, and works as an actor. Born in 1981.
The Butler Bell site is about his work as a butler and as the head; this one is about the actor and the businessman.
He took the lead, as himself, in the 2019 Family Romance, LLC, the film by Werner Herzog, shown in the Directors Fortnight at the 72nd edition of the Cannes festival.
In 2019 he took the stage at a conference held at Harvard University and spoke about what the family stand-in means for society, receiving the Glass Award. The conference was the Harvard Global Health and Leadership Conference.
Yes, a book on the human rental business (Tetsujinsha, 2019), bringing together the relationships between people he has seen on the front line of stand-in work.
He heads the body that stands behind the academy. His path runs in the same direction as the academy goal of establishing the butler in society as a profession assessed against explicit criteria.
The official site covers his career as actor and entrepreneur; the Butler Bell site covers his work as a butler and head of the association. They are presented as two sides of one person rather than one being the main occupation.
Requests for lectures, training and media appearances go to the Butler Bell official site. This site is mainly a record of career and works.
More related organizations
More from the group
All Japan Butler Association
The parent body that trains and certifies butlers
THE BUTLER
The butler service run by the association
Butler Bell
The head of the association, in his own words
Queen's Butler
A butler salon for women, run by the association
Family Romance Inc.
The family stand-in company founded by the head of the association
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Last updated: 18 September 2026