Mitsukuni Defying the Skeleton-Specter

This first print is Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s Mitsukuni Defying the Skeleton Spectre, based on an 1807 novel Story of the Loyal Utō Yasukata (Utō Yasukata chūgiden) by Santō Kyōden, later adapted into a kabuki play in 1836. The story follows the story of Ôya no Tarô Mitsukuni, a samurai-made-ronin after the defeat and death of the rebel lord Tairo no Masakado. The left-most figure is Princess Takiyasha, daughter of Tairo no Masakado, who seeks to take revenge on those who killed her father with her black magic. Mitsukuni is in the center of the print, simultaneously fending off Araimaru, Takiyasha’s minion, and glaring up at the ōdokuro, or giant skeleton that Takiyasha has summoned. The skeleton is pulling down on the ruined bamboo blinds of the ruined Sōma Castle, which Takiyasha used to call home.