Fictionalized tales of the Genroku Ako Incident in the Edo period (1603-1868) have endured for centuries as a beloved genre in kabuki and other art forms known as Chushingura, or "Treasury of Loyal Retainers."
The real-life incident centered around Asano Takumi no Kami, the feudal lord of the Ako domain, who was forced to commit seppuku ritual suicide to take responsibility for attacking court official Kira Kozuke no Suke with a small sword in the Matsu no Roka (hallway of pines) in Edo Castle. Asano was further punished with the confiscation of his domain. His samurai retainers were thus left to suffer the shame of becoming ronin, masterless samurai.
Almost two years later, on the 14th day of the 12th month in the 15th year of the Genroku era (1702), 47 of these ronin stormed into Kira's residence to exact vengeance on behalf of their lord. They marched across the city with Kira's head in the bitter cold -- late January on the modern calendar -- to Sengakuji temple, in present-day Minato Ward, Tokyo, where Asano was laid to rest, to inform him of their deed.
Although much about the end of this story has been well preserved, not much of Kira's persona and residence have survived. A section of Kira's former estate, located in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, has been developed as the Honjo Matsuzakacho Koen park, which is designated by the Tokyo metropolitan government as a historical site.
Kira's residence is said to have covered about 8,400 square meters. Today it is nowhere near what it used to be, with many private homes lined up on parts of the former site. In 1934, local residents purchased a lot with the idea of bequeathing even a portion of the site to future generations and donated it to Tokyo. The donated land where the Honjo Matsuzakacho park is located measures about 98 square meters, a mere one-86th of the original residence's size. Tombstones engraved with the names of Kira and his 20 retainers who were killed in the attack are lined up in the park, conveying the residents' respect for the Kira clan.
The well, where Kira's severed head is said to have been washed, seems to have existed when the land was purchased, but there is no documentation left to prove it. Even so, materials such as a floor plan for the residence and a scene from a Chushingura drama drawn by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) are exhibited in the park to show that it is the site of the Ako attack on Kira.
An association established by neighborhood residents to preserve the site of Kira's residence and other entities created a seated statue of Kira modeled after the statue at the Kezoji temple in Kira of Mikawa (present-day Nishio, Aichi Prefecture), which was his domain, and installed it in the park in 2010. Impressed by this, the former Kira Town (merged into Nishio City in April 2011) presented a copper-roofed shed to the park.
Kira Kozuke no Suke is portrayed in Chushingura tales as a villain who treated the Ako domain's lord coldly. But the real-life Kira is said to have been a feudal lord admired in his domain as a virtuous ruler. Yasuhiro Okazaki, 87, chairman of the Kira Residence Preservation Association, said that he wanted visitors to "imagine what kind of a person he was by looking at the gentle face of his seated statute."
This year's Genroku-ichi festival and memorial service for Kira's retainers, which was scheduled for December at the Kira Residence site, was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the local people's activities of handing down the history from generation to generation will never cease.
Kira Residence site (Honjo Matsuzakacho Koen): 3-13-9 Ryogoku, Sumida Ward, Tokyo
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