Yoshitsune Shin Takadachi

Yoshitsune Shin Takadachi

Yoshitsune Shin-Takadachi (義経新高館), or Yoshitsune and the New Takadachi, is a Japanese jōruri (puppet) play which centers on the conflict between Minamoto no Yoshitsune and his brother, Shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo. Though set in the 12th century, and drawing upon previous versions of the story of this conflict, the play alludes strongly to the 1615 siege of Osaka, in which the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate defeated those of the Toyotomi clan.

References to the shogunate, and especially to the campaigns of Tokugawa Ieyasu, were banned from the stage for much of the Edo period (1603-1868) in which the Tokugawa ruled. Yoshitsune Shin-Takadachi, written by Ki no Kaion and first performed in 1719, over a century after the events of the siege of Osaka, is said to have been the first play to successfully allude to these events without being ended by the official censors.