Kanadehon Chūshingura
The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Kanadehon Chūshingura)
Japanese title: 仮名手本忠臣蔵(かなでほんちゅうしんぐら)
Also written as: Kanadehon Chushingura / Chushingura
The Story in Three Lines
Kabuki loses nothing when you know the story in advance. Start with just three lines.
- 01
Humiliated by Kō no Moronao, Lord Enya Hangan draws his sword inside the palace. He is ordered to commit seppuku, and his house is dissolved.
- 02
His chief retainer Ōboshi Yuranosuke feigns a life of dissipation to disarm the enemy's watchers, all the while keeping contact with the scattered retainers.
- 03
On a snowy night, forty-seven men storm Moronao's mansion—to answer, more than a year later, for their lord's death.
Three Things to Watch For
These three points are all the preparation you need. On the day, simply give yourself to the stage.
The seppuku scene
Hangan cuts his belly while waiting for Yuranosuke to arrive. The scene is held in near-silence; by long custom the audience does not come and go while it plays.
The teahouse at Ichiriki
Beneath Yuranosuke's drunken disorder the resolve is drawn tight. The role must show dissipation and determination at once.
The play that never failed
Put it on when the house is empty and the house fills: the play was nicknamed dokujintō, after a restorative medicine that never failed to work.
Characters
- Ōboshi Yuranosuke
- The dead lord's chief retainer, who hides his true intent behind a show of dissipation. One of the largest male roles in all of kabuki.
- Enya Hangan
- The young lord who cannot bear the insult. The seppuku scene asks for anger and regret held entirely in check.
- Okaru
- Kanpei's wife, who in the teahouse scene reads Yuranosuke's secret letter from an upper floor by means of a mirror. A major onnagata role.
Stagecraft and Highlights
First staged as a puppet play at the Takemoto-za in 1748 and adapted for kabuki the same year, credited to Takeda Izumo II, Miyoshi Shōraku and Namiki Senryū. One of the three great masterpieces.
The Genroku-era Akō vendetta could not be staged directly, so the play is said to have been shifted into the world of the medieval chronicle Taiheiki with its characters renamed. Running from the prologue to an eleventh act, it is now performed in selected acts.
Sources
This page is compiled by the D-13 editorial team from established, widely shared knowledge of kabuki. Where details such as premiere dates are debated, we avoid definitive statements.
- Author
- D-13 Editorial
- Published
- Aug 15, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 15, 2026