His brother Bandō Kamezō I and son Ichimura Takenojō V were active actors on the stage, as were many of his grandsons, great-grandsons, and further descendants to whom he also passed on the position of zamoto.

He was born in Edo in 1791, the son of Fukuchi Mohei IV, a publisher and secondary manager of the Ichimura-za.

At the age of two, he was adopted by Ichimura Uzaemon X in the same year that the theatre went bankrupt and closed, passing its license to the Kiri-za.

Manjirō, as he was then known, took on the name Uzaemon XI in 1800, officially becoming zamoto at the age of nine, though the actual administrative matters were handled by Fukuchi Zenbei, the owner of a shibai jaya (a teahouse within the theatre).

Uzaemon struggled with the debts incurred by his predecessors, and the costs of repeatedly rebuilding the theatre; the Ichimura-za declared bankruptcy in 1815, transferring its license to the Kiri-za once again.