Who Is Kumagai no Naozane (Kumagai Naozane)?
The eastern warrior who wept after killing Atsumori
Kumagai no Jirō Naozane
Kumagai no Naozane was a Minamoto-side warrior from Kumagai in Musashi Province (today's Saitama Prefecture), best known for killing Taira no Atsumori at the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani. His name is also read "Kumagae."
In The Tale of the Heike, he and his son Kojirō try to be the first to break into the enemy at Ichi-no-Tani. After the battle, searching the shore for a worthy foe, he calls back a Heike warrior fleeing into the sea and pins him down. But the face beneath the helmet belongs to a boy the same age as his own son. Kumagai wants to spare him, but his allies Doi and Kajiwara are closing in from behind, so, thinking "better by my hand than someone else's," he takes the boy's head in tears. When he shows Atsumori's flute to Yoshitsune and the others, everyone there weeps.
The tale says this event set Kumagai on the path of Buddhism. He did in fact later become a monk, studied under the priest Hōnen, and took the Buddhist name Renshō.
Episodes featuring this character2
NEWEpisode 11
Under the Helmet, a Boy His Son's AgeThe Death of Atsumori
After the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, Kumagai no Naozane is still hungry for glory. He waves his fan at a young warrior fleeing into the sea, calls him back, and pins him down. Under the helmet is the face of a boy about his own son's age. Then Naozane sees the flute at the boy's hip and remembers the music he heard before dawn.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 14
He Doomed Her ClanThen Came to Visit — The Imperial Visit to Ōhara (Kenreimon-in)
the series finale. Kenreimon-in was the only one of her clan pulled alive from the sea at Dan-no-Ura. Now she spends her days in prayer at a mountain hermitage in Ōhara. One early summer, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, the man who ordered the war that destroyed her family, comes to see her in secret. She tells him to his face how much she has resented him. Then she begins to tell her life story as a journey through six realms.
19 pages