Did Naotora Exist? The Name Jirō-hōshi and Recent Source Research

In 2016, a Kyoto-based researcher published a startling observation from a reexamination of old documents related to the Ii family.

The 'Jirō-hōshi' who ruled Ii-no-ya was not Ii Naotora — but a man of the Imagawa house, Sekiguchi Ujitsune.

The Ii Family Records is a genealogy compiled by the Edo-period Ii family, and it is the principal source for the account of Jirō-hōshi = Ii Naotora = a woman.

It transmits that she was the sole daughter of Ii Naomori, the betrothed of Ii Naochika, that on Naochika's death she took vows, and that later she succeeded to the Ii house.

Within the Hikone-domain consciousness of house honor, the precedent of a female lord within the Ii house carried special meaning.

According to the interpretation of the Kanasashi family documents published in 2016, the 'Jirō-hōshi' who ruled Ii-no-ya may point to Sekiguchi Ujitsune (of the Imagawa house).

Contemporary primary sources are thin, and it is pointed out that the later Ii-family tradition may have recorded a male lord as female.

That said, this interpretation is itself one theory, and it has not fully overturned the traditional account.

The 2017 NHK taiga drama 'Onna Jōshu Naotora' (Lady Warlord Naotora) was broadcast in the midst of this scholarly debate.

The drama rests on the traditional Naotora = female image; the writers and production team, aware of the male argument, chose the female image as narrative.

Through the overseas distribution of the drama, the name Naotora came to be known in the English-speaking world as well.

The contemporary image of Ii Naotora is a layered product of the Edo-period Ii family tradition, the post-Meiji women's history studies, the 2017 taiga drama, and the male-argument debate from 2016 onward.

Whether the lord who actually existed at Ii-no-ya was male or female cannot be settled, given how thin the contemporary primary sources are.

But the existence itself of 'the Jirō-hōshi who ruled Ii-no-ya' is recognized as historical fact.