The development of intelligent materials which can produce spontaneously different deformation under some external stimuli (such as temperature, electricity, light, magnetic field and so on) provides promising substances for materials chemistry and biomimetic engineering. Among them, azobenzene is attractive molecular transducer for light driven devices and optical switches due to the large reversible changes in molecular shape that occur upon isomerization. Light-driven applications are facilitated by the distinct absorption bands of the cis and trans isomers that allow for selective conversion and are robust even after multiple photocycles. Photoresponsive gels having azobenzene units in a rigid aromatic backbone are expected as a next generation actuator that offers direct energy conversion from light to macroscopic work. Since it is not necessary electric wiring, possible to be operated remotely with light. And its operation principle is based on the movement of molecular scale, so it could be miniaturized. In this study, we synthesized photoresponsive polyimide (PI) gels which are hardly hydrolyzed and decomposed as compared with precursor photoresponsive poly (amide acid) (PAA) gels. Conventional polyimide gels obtained by crosslinking bifunctional oligomers having azobenzene moiety with tetrafunctional amine showed no reversible photoresponsiveness. However, by using N,N’-bis(3,5-diaminobenzoyl)-4,4’-diaminoazobenzene (BDA-Azo) as a tetrafunctional crosslinking agent which azobenzene is introduced, a centimeter-long cantilever made up of the photoresponsive PI gel exhibited reversible bending motions which were faster than the precursor PAA gel upon blue (402 nm) and visible light (532 nm) irradiation. Therefore, in order to elucidate the influence of chemical structure on bending behavior, we investigated various physical properties of the novel PI gel composed of BDA-Azo, conventional PI gel and their precursor by using UV-vis spectrum measurement, Raman scattering measurement, etc. and discussed relationships between photoisomerization and bending behavior.