Chushingura, Act XI: Night Attack

One of the most popular Kabuki plays of all time, Chūshingura was based on the story of a vendetta from the early 1700s. The tale concerns a group of loyal retainers who set out to avenge the forced suicide of their lord. Because of censorship laws banning current events from the stage, the play, which debuted in 1748, was set in a much earlier era, and the names of the warriors were changed. The moment shown here is the penultimate one in the play, when, after years of plotting and waiting, the retainers sneak into the mansion of Kō Moronō, the man they hold responsible for their lord’s death. On a silent night, their footsteps muffled by snow, the men are directed by Ōboshi Yuranosuke to scale the wall and enter the compound. A full moon lights their way.
Of the many versions of this scene created in the nineteenth century, this is perhaps the most unusual. Kuniyoshi based his design closely on an illustration of houses in Batavia in Johan Nieuhof ’s Voyages and Travels to the East Indies (Gedenkwaerdige zee en lant-reize door de voornamste landschappen van West en Oostindien), a scientific book published in Amsterdam in 1682. Kuniyoshi borrowed not only the shape and linear perspective of the buildings, but also the pose of Yuranosuke, the form of a running dog, and the shadows cast upon the ground by these and other figures. This is the second state, lacking the red light beam that shines from the lantern held at right in some versions.