The golden boy, hunted, in disguise. Yoshitsune is Japan's most beloved tragic hero — the brilliant young general who won the Genpei War for his brother Yoritomo, and was then hunted to death by that same brother for the crime of being too brilliant, too popular, too loved. Kanjinchō catches him at the low ebb: a fugitive fleeing north, disguised as a lowly porter, trying to slip his party through the Ataka barrier checkpoint.

That's the exquisite tension of the role. The greatest warrior of the age must play a nobody — head down, face hidden, utterly passive — while his giant retainer Benkei improvises their survival, even striking his own master to sell the deception (a servant would never hesitate to beat a real porter). Bandō Takesaburō I takes the prince here, and the whole pathos of the part is restraint: a hero who must swallow his own greatness to live one more day. It rarely ends well for Yoshitsune, and everyone in the theatre knows it.

The actor Bandō Takesaburō I (坂東竹三郎) as Minamoto Yoshitsune (源義経), from the kabuki production Kanjinchō (勧進帳, The Subscription List) 1849.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳, 1798-1861)