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Yukio Mishima is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, and film director. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century; he was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was poised to win the prize in 1968 but lost the award to his fellow countryman Yasunari Kawabata.<br/><br/> His avant-garde work displayed a blending of modern and traditional aesthetics that broke cultural boundaries, with a focus on sexuality, death, and political change. He is remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'etat attempt, known as the 'Mishima Incident'.
The revenge of the Forty-seven Ronin (四十七士 Shi-jū-shichi-shi), also known as the Forty-seven Samurai, the Akō vendetta, or the Genroku Akō incident (元禄赤穂事件 Genroku akō jiken) took place in Japan at the start of the 18th century. One noted Japanese scholar described the tale as the country's 'national legend'. It recounts the most famous case involving the samurai code of honor, bushidō.<br/><br/> The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo (feudal lord) Asano Naganori was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. The ronin avenged their master's honor after patiently waiting and planning for two years to kill Kira.<br/><br/> In turn, the ronin were themselves ordered to commit seppuku for committing the crime of murder. With much embellishment, this true story was popularized in Japanese culture as emblematic of the loyalty, sacrifice, persistence, and honor that all good people should preserve in their daily lives. The popularity of the almost mythical tale was only enhanced by rapid modernization during the Meiji era of Japanese history, when it is suggested many people in Japan longed for a return to their cultural roots.<br/><br/> Fictionalized accounts of these events are known as Chūshingura. The story was popularized in numerous plays including bunraku and kabuki. Because of the censorship laws of the shogunate in the Genroku era, which forbade portrayal of current events, the names of the ronin were changed.
The revenge of the Forty-seven Ronin (四十七士 Shi-jū-shichi-shi), also known as the Forty-seven Samurai, the Akō vendetta, or the Genroku Akō incident (元禄赤穂事件 Genroku akō jiken) took place in Japan at the start of the 18th century. One noted Japanese scholar described the tale as the country's 'national legend'. It recounts the most famous case involving the samurai code of honor, bushidō.<br/><br/> The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo (feudal lord) Asano Naganori was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. The ronin avenged their master's honor after patiently waiting and planning for two years to kill Kira.<br/><br/> In turn, the ronin were themselves ordered to commit seppuku for committing the crime of murder. With much embellishment, this true story was popularized in Japanese culture as emblematic of the loyalty, sacrifice, persistence, and honor that all good people should preserve in their daily lives. The popularity of the almost mythical tale was only enhanced by rapid modernization during the Meiji era of Japanese history, when it is suggested many people in Japan longed for a return to their cultural roots.<br/><br/> Fictionalized accounts of these events are known as Chūshingura. The story was popularized in numerous plays including bunraku and kabuki. Because of the censorship laws of the shogunate in the Genroku era, which forbade portrayal of current events, the names of the ronin were changed.
Seppuku (切腹, 'stomach-cutting') is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honour code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honour rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture), or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed for other reasons that had brought shame to them.<br/><br/> The ceremonial disembowelment, which is usually part of a more elaborate ritual and performed in front of spectators, consists of plunging a short blade, traditionally a tantō, into the abdomen and moving the blade from left to right in a slicing motion
Oda Nobunaga (June 23, 1534 – June 21, 1582) was the initiator of the unification of Japan under the rule of the shogun in the late 16th century, a rule that ended only with the opening of Japan to the Western world in 1868. He was also a major daimyo during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. His work was continued, completed and finalized by his successors Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was the second son of Oda Nobuhide, a deputy shugo (military governor) with land holdings in Owari Province.<br/><br/> Nobunaga lived a life of continuous military conquest, eventually conquering a third of Japanese daimyo before his death in 1582. His successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a loyal Oda supporter, would eventually become the first man to conquer all of Japan and the first ruler of all Japan since the Ōnin War.