Like most 10-year-olds in Japan, Maholo Terajima enjoys baseball and video games, but his schedule also includes swordfights, choreography and fan dancing to prepare for his kabuki debut. The French-Japanese child made his first appearance to rapturous applause this week under his new stage name -- Onoe Maholo -- at Tokyo's Kabuki-za theatre, the storied home of the classical artform. He joins just a handful of children who tread the boards in the ranks of Japan's kabuki actors, part of a tradition that is hundreds of years old. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES