Kogi Kaishakunin
Encyclopedia
The Kogi Kaishakunin is a fictional position appearing in the manga Lone Wolf and Cub
. In the story, it was the Japan
ese shogun
's official executioner
.
A position of great power, the Kogi Kaishakunin wore robes emblazoned with the shogun's personal crest and was the personification of the shogun as he assisted daimyo
during their seppuku
. Seppuku was a method of ritualized suicide the Bushi and Samurai
used when confronted with shame or defeat, or when ordered to do so by their master. Seppuku offered an honorable, albeit excruciatingly painful, death.
Samurai committing seppuku often had a second, or kaishaku, who would assist their death by striking a fatal sword blow, often severing the head, at the moment of greatest pain, thus expediting the death of the samurai. However, because loyal retainers had sworn never to raise their swords against their master, a daimyo committing seppuku could not have a loyal retainer help him. Thus the Kogi Kaishakunin, being the personification of the shogun, was the only one capable of assisting a daimyo during his seppuku.
In the story of Lone Wolf and Cub, Yagyū Retsudō, the head of the Yagyu clan, conspired to take control of this post as part of his overall plan of taking control of the government. The Yagyu had already subverted the information gathering and secret police equivalents of the shogun, and with the post of executioner under their control, they could protect sympathetic daimyo by faking their deaths and then incorporate them into their shadow government while fabricating evidence and killing those opposed.
Lone Wolf and Cub
is a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.Lone Wolf and Cub...
. In the story, it was the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese shogun
Shogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
's official executioner
Executioner
A judicial executioner is a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority, which was known in feudal terminology as high justice.-Scope and job:...
.
A position of great power, the Kogi Kaishakunin wore robes emblazoned with the shogun's personal crest and was the personification of the shogun as he assisted daimyo
Daimyo
is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...
during their seppuku
Seppuku
is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies , or as a form of capital punishment...
. Seppuku was a method of ritualized suicide the Bushi and Samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
used when confronted with shame or defeat, or when ordered to do so by their master. Seppuku offered an honorable, albeit excruciatingly painful, death.
Samurai committing seppuku often had a second, or kaishaku, who would assist their death by striking a fatal sword blow, often severing the head, at the moment of greatest pain, thus expediting the death of the samurai. However, because loyal retainers had sworn never to raise their swords against their master, a daimyo committing seppuku could not have a loyal retainer help him. Thus the Kogi Kaishakunin, being the personification of the shogun, was the only one capable of assisting a daimyo during his seppuku.
In the story of Lone Wolf and Cub, Yagyū Retsudō, the head of the Yagyu clan, conspired to take control of this post as part of his overall plan of taking control of the government. The Yagyu had already subverted the information gathering and secret police equivalents of the shogun, and with the post of executioner under their control, they could protect sympathetic daimyo by faking their deaths and then incorporate them into their shadow government while fabricating evidence and killing those opposed.