The Modern Nakano Takeko: How the Memory of the Defeated Was Venerated

On September 22, 1868, Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle surrendered, and the Aizu War ended in the victory of the New Government army.

The Aizu domain was forfeited, and retainers and families were transferred to Tonami on the Shimokita Peninsula (around the modern Mutsu City, Aomori Prefecture).

The beginning of suffering in a bitterly cold land, including over 2,500 deaths.

The memory of Nakano Takeko and the Jōshigun would long be treated within this collective memory of Aizu as the defeated.

The Meiji government was composed of those from the Satsuma-Chōshū-centered New Government army side, and the memory of the Boshin War was constructed as the story of the victor's side.

Speaking of the memory of the war from the Aizu side was publicly suppressed throughout the Meiji period.

The story of Takeko and the Jōshigun too remained held only sparsely within the oral tradition of the Aizu populace.

The younger sister Yūko survived the Meiji period and transmitted her sister's life to family and close ones.

Entering the Taishō period (1912-1926), the Meiji-government-centered historical view relaxed, and local memory began to revive.

In Aizu too, veneration activities for Takeko and the Jōshigun began. In 1932 (Shōwa 7), the monument 'Site of Nakano Takeko's Martyrdom' was built within the grounds of Hōkai-ji.

The story of Takeko, which had been sparsely held within the popular memory of Aizu, became the object of public veneration.

In the settings of Aizu women's education, Takeko came to be spoken of as an ideal figure.

Today, the name Nakano Takeko has come to be known not only within Japan but also overseas.

Entering the twenty-first century, overseas interest in female samurai and women combatants rose, and the name Nakano Takeko came to be taken up in English-language documentaries, novels, and games.

There are examples of her being introduced on Netflix documentaries and American cable television history programs.

The story of the twenty-one-year-old Aizu female warrior who fell in battle is positioned as a story of women at the entrance to modern Japan, within the lineage of 'women samurai' that continues from Tomoe Gozen (this site's id 28) four hundred years before.

Hōkai-ji in Aizu-Bange Town today receives an unceasing flow of visitors with interest in the woman samurai.