Mochinosha was founded in 2012 by Canadian artist Daniel Wishes and Japanese artist Seri Yanai. The two met while studying puppetry together at the London School of Puppetry in the U.K.

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Mochinosha won the Japan New Puppetry Award in 2016 with their shadow puppetry show "DEBRIS". The same year, they also created the science fiction adventure shadow show "Space Hippo", which became one of their most popular shows. They toured 4 cities across Canada with the show and performed it 33 times. They received a 5 STAR review from CBC Canada during the tour. In the Victoria Fringe Festival. Space Hippo won the award for overall best show at the festival.

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In 2017 and 2018, they did a world tour with support from the Japan Foundation. They performed and taught shadow puppetry workshops in 5 cities in Canada, Indonesia and Armenia.

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In 2019, they were invited to Brazil and China, where they successfully performed their shows with Portuguese and Chinese subtitles. They performed Space Hippo at the Orlando Fringe Festival where they had sold out shows and won a Critic's Choice award. They performed Shadow Kingdom at the Osaka Fringe festival and won the 21 Century award for best Production. They created a new show called Green Man which they premiered in Tokyo and Kagawa.

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Most of their plans for touring in 2020 were postponed due to the global outbreak. They have been using that time to develop new work and explore new ways to share their art.