Who Is Otaka Gengo Tadao (Otaka Tadao)?
Poet ronin who learned the date of the tea party
Otaka Gengo was one of the 47 Ronin, also known as a haiku poet under the pen name Shiyo.
When the attack was decided at the Maruyama Conference, Oishi sent him around to the comrades' homes as the messenger who handed back their signed oaths (shinmon). In Edo he posed as a merchant and became a pupil of the tea master Yamada Sohen, who visited the Kira household, and he found out the day a tea gathering would be held at Kira's mansion. This information helped fix the 14th day of the twelfth month as the date of the raid.
He committed seppuku after the raid. A well-known story says he exchanged verses with the poet Takarai Kikaku on Ryogoku Bridge the night before the raid, but it was invented by later plays and storytellers.
Episodes featuring this character7
NEWEpisode 4
His Lord Is Dead. He Parties Every Night.Oishi Kuranosuke, "The Daytime Lantern"
Episode 4 of the 47 Ronin series. His lord is dead and his house abolished, yet chief retainer Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshio still hopes the clan can be restored. Meanwhile he spends every night in the pleasure quarters, and the townsfolk and his own comrades all laugh at him. For one moment, in the shadows behind the party lights, he shows a stone-cold sober look. Was it an act, or the real man? Dawn comes with no answer.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 6
The 48th Ronin Who Should Have Been ThereKayano Sanpei
Sanpei, one of the riders who carried word of their lord's death, returns to his home village. There he is trapped between his vow to his comrades and his duty to his father, who has promised him to the family that once gave Sanpei his start. He tries to slip away and can't. The episode follows him to the morning of his lord's monthly memorial day, when he leaves behind a single haiku, and then to how his story lived on in the theater.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 7
Take Back Your Oath, and Walk Away AliveThe Maruyama Conference and the Returned Oaths
The last hope of restoring their late lord's house is gone, and in Maruyama, Kyoto, Oishi decides to strike down Lord Kira. First, though, he hands back the sworn oaths. Some comrades accept theirs and leave. Others throw them back and stay. Terasaka, the foot soldier who carried the box of oaths for the two messengers, is finally handed the last sheet: his own.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 8
He Learned Tea to Steal a Single DateThe Ronin in Hiding & Ōtaka Gengo
To protect his family, Oishi divorces his wife Riku, and the Ako ronin slip into Edo disguised as townsfolk. Otaka Gengo becomes a pupil of tea master Yamada Sohen and learns the day Kira will host a tea gathering at his mansion. Without a word, the ronin begin saying their goodbyes.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 9
We Broke In. His Bed Was Still Warm.The Raid on Kira's Mansion
On a snowy night in the twelfth month of Genroku 15, the ronin, after nearly two years of patient waiting, gather in Honjo. Before dawn they storm Kira's mansion from two sides, the front gate and the back gate. They show every courtesy to the neighbors and watch a young retainer die defending his lord. But when they burst into the bedchamber, all they find is a bed that is still warm.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 11
They Had the Head. They Didn't Run.The March to Sengaku-ji
The raid is over. With the head of their enemy, Lord Kira, raised on a spear, the ronin march through the snowy streets of Edo to the grave of their late lord. Along the way, one foot soldier, a dried persimmon from a comrade tucked in his robe, quietly slips out of the line. At the grave, Oishi weeps for the first time.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 12
47 Ronin. Only 46 Graves.The Seppuku of the 47 Ronin and Sengaku-ji
After the raid, the forty-six ronin are placed in the custody of four daimyo houses. At the Hosokawa mansion, Horiuchi Den'emon listens to their stories and is eventually entrusted with a letter from Oishi Kuranosuke to his son Chikara. On a spring day the verdict arrives: seppuku. At the graves of Sengaku-ji, the aged storyteller Terasaka Kichiemon finishes his tale, and the story passes on to the stage as the curtain rises on Kanadehon Chushingura.
19 pages