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While voluntary seppuku is the best known form, [6] in practice, the most common form of seppuku was obligatory seppuku, used as a form of capital punishment for disgraced samurai, especially for those who committed a serious offense such as rape, robbery, corruption, unprovoked murder, or treason.
The river improvement works started on February 27. The enmity of the Tokugawa shogunate was obvious because they ordered the dike destroyed three times as it neared completion. Two of the leading samurai involved in the work, Nagayoshi Sobe and Otokawa Sadabuchi, committed seppuku in protest.
The revenge of the forty-seven rōnin (四十七士, Shijūshichishi), [2] also known as the Akō incident (赤穂事件, Akō jiken) or Akō vendetta, is a historical event in Japan in which a band of rōnin (lordless samurai) avenged the death of their former master on 31 January 1703. [3]
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He was wounded and failed to kill Kira. On the same day, the fifth Tokugawa shōgun Tsunayoshi sentenced him to commit seppuku, which he did after writing his death poem: 「風さそう花よりも / なお我はまた / 春の名残を / いかにとやせん」 "kaze sasou / hana yori mo nao / ware ha mata / haru no nagori wo / ika ni toyasen."
The siege of Osaka also is the main setting for the tv show, Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles. The protagonist, Tsugumo Hanshirō, of the film Harakiri, mentions his status as a veteran of the siege of Osaka Castle. The events of the siege and its fallout form the backstory for the 1974 Toei TV series Unmeitōge.
When Asano committed seppuku as punishment for his failed attempt to kill Kira Yoshinaka in Edo castle and the Tokugawa shogunate abolished the house of Asano of Akō, Ōishi was in Akō and managed all its administrative issues. He persuaded other samurai to peacefully yield control of the castle to the agents of the Shogunate.
In any case, the kaishakunin will always keep eye contact with the samurai performing seppuku, and waiting for his cut (kiri) through his abdomen (hara). When the samurai actually performs the seppuku , and after he returns the dagger ( tantō ) back to its place, the kaishakunin steps forward, letting the katana drop straight through the back ...