Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu

Encyclopedia : F : FO : FOU : Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu

The Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu (幕末四大人斬り) was a term given to four samurai during the Bakumatsu era in Japanese history. They were against the Tokugawa shogunate (and later, in support of the Meiji Emperor.) Hitokiri, literally meaning "Human Slayer", is a superlative name for this particular caliber of samurai. These four samurai were warrior elite and widely considered undefeatable by normal people. Along with the title of Hitokiri, the four men were also referred to as "The Four Butchers" or "Heaven's Revenge against the enemies of Imperial restoration". Most of them came from the Choshu-Satsuma provinces, which were largely anti-Bakufu at the time. These notable men were Kawakami Gensai, Nakamura Hanjiro (also known as Kirino Toshiaki), Tanaka Shimbe, and Izo Okada.

Hitokiri is a 1969 film directed by Hideo Gosha and starring Shintaro Katsu as Izo Okada. The anime series Rurouni Kenshin is about a former hitokiri.

External link

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.