Amakusa Shirō
Amakusa Shirō (天草 四郎, 1621? – April 12, 1638) also known as Amakusa Shirō Tokisada (天草四郎時貞) was the teenage leader of the Shimabara Rebellion.
Biography
The son of former Konishi clan retainer Masuda Jinbei (益田 甚兵衛) (according to some sources, Shirō may have been the illegitimate son of Toyotomi Hideyori), Shirō was born in modern-day Kami-Amakusa, Kumamoto in a Catholic family. The charismatic 15-year-old was known to his followers as "heaven's messenger." Miraculous powers were attributed to him.[1]
Shiro led the defence of Hara Castle and defeated strongest of Shogunate attackers. But because rebel had no logistical support, their moral was seriously weakened. Shiro put posters in the castle in order to enhance the moral of rebel force, saying "Now, those who accompany me in being besieged in this castle, will be my friends unto the next world." But a rebel soldier Yamada Uemonsaku betrayed rebel and notified Shogunate the truth that rebel's food is running low. Shogunate performed last merciless strike, and Hara castle had been fallen at last. Shogunate massacred Almost 40,000 rebel(including woman and child) in process. Records saying Yamada, who betrayed rebel was only survivor.
Shiro executed in the aftermath of the fall, his head was displayed on a pike in Nagasaki for a very long time afterward as a warning to any other potential Christian rebels. His last word was : "I shall return after 100 years and take my revenge." Even now, many Japanese christian consider him as a saint, but Roman Catholic did not canonized him yet.
In popular culture
Amakusa Shiro is often cast as a tragic villain in Japanese popular culture. Such portrayal includes Makai Tensho, a story about the fictional battles of Yagyu Jubei, in which Amakusa Shiro rejects the Christian God at the time of his death and becomes a demon, returning to Earth to destroy the Tokugawa shogunate who put him to death with some of Japan's greatest heroes and villains of the age who were also resurrected as demons. A fictionalized Amakusa appears as the antagonist in Kinji Fukasaku's movie Samurai Reincarnation. In the anime series Rurouni Kenshin, the antagonist Amakusa Shōgo is said to be the "second coming" of Amakusa Shirō. Shiro Amakusa is a recurring character in the Samurai Shodown series of fighting games, featured as both a boss (in the first Samurai Shodown game, which is loosely based on the Shimabara Rebellion) and a selectable character, in which he is both a mad and vengeful spirit resurrected as a being of destruction, and a being seeking for redemption; his evil side is Aku Amakusa.[2][3][4]
Amakusa Shiro was portrayed in a positive light in the 1962 movie Amakusa Shiro Tokisada (distributed in the UK as The Rebel and in the US as The Revolutionary). The manga Amakusa 1637 is a story about a girl from the present world taking the place of Shiro because he was killed. Karen Joy Fowler's short story "Shimabara" concerns Amakusa Shirō and the siege of Castle Hara. The Japanese doll and figure company Volks has released an SD13 sized Super Dollfie based on Amakusa named Amakusa Shirou Tokisada.
Also a leading character in Douglass Bailey's 1986 book Shimabara, although given an incorrect age and fictional history.
References
- ^ Michael Hoffman, The Christian Century, Japan Times, Dec. 2007
- ^ Shiro Tokisada Amakusa - SNK Wiki
- ^ Aku Amakusa - SNK Wiki
- ^ Shiro Tokisada Amakusa - Villains Wiki
Further reading
- Ivan Morris. The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan. London: Secker and Warburg (1975)
External links
- Amakusa Shirō Tokisada Web Template:Jp icon
- Amakusa Shirō (Kumamoto Rekishi Jinbutsu) Template:Jp icon
This article incorporates text from OpenHistory.