パペットホームズ、大河ドラマなどの好きなテレビ番組やラグビーについて書いています。アフィリエイトはやっていません。／Welcome to my blog. I write about some Japanese TV programmes including NHK puppetry and Taiga Drama, Sherlock Holmes and rugby. I don't do affiliate marketing.
TOKUGAWA Iesada is pressed to conclude the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States by Townsend Harris. TOKUGAWA Nariaki, former lord of Mito domain and a father of HITOTSUBASHI Yoshinobu is angry with it and he strongly opposes to obtain the Imperial sanction to conclude it. But ABE Masahiro who is one of the leading figures to reform the shogunate dies and it worries SHIMAZU Nariakira. MATSUDAIRA Yoshinage also worries about it. Meanwhile, II Naosuke supports TOKUGAWA Yoshitomi from Kishū Tokugawa Family and attempts to make him next shogun after the death of Iesada who is seriously ill.
Honju-in (Pinko Izumi. left) plans to make TOKUGAWA Yoshitomi (Towa Araki) next shogun
Kichinosuke sees a masked man whom he saw in Isodaya. He tries to remove his mask but Naosuke's vassal NAGANO Shuzen comes there. He brings Kichinosuke to a tea-ceremony room of Naosuke. Obviously Naosuke and Shuzen regard Nariakira as enemy. After the masked man who formerly put a mask on his face tries to kill Hī-sama (Yoshinobu) but is killed by Kichinosuke. Kichinosume killed a person for the first time. Hī-sama tells him that Satsuma-no-kami (Nariakira) will praise him. But Kichinosuke talks back to him that both Yoshinobu and the man are fellow-men but Yoshinobu is the man who can save many people. He adds if he still keeps escaping from his enemy, the man who tried to kill him will not rest in peace.
Kichinosuke (Ryōhei Suzuki, left) fights against the man who tries to kill Yoshinobu
Yoshinobu negotiates directly with Naosuke and makes his mind to become next shogun. However the Imperial decree that admits the succession of Yoshinobu is altered to make Yoshitomi succeed Iesada. Kichinosuke returns to Satsuma and tells Nariakira about it. Nariakira says that his dream has collapsed and releases Kichinosuke from the post of niwakata. Kichinosuke is dispirited but ŌKUBO Shōsuke encourages him that he has always challenged various things and never given up since his childhood.
HITOTSUBASHI Yoshinobu (Shōta Matsuda) visits II Naosuke and declares that he will become next shogun
Kichinosuke goes to Tsurumaru Castle. He shakes other vassals off and asks Nariakira to raise an army and go to Kyoto. If Nariakira goes to Kyoto with the army, it will overwhelm the shogunate and enable the reform of the political system of Japan. In Kyoto, Kichinosuke gets to know O-Tora, a maid of Kagiya that is the inn for Satsuma domain samurais. However Nariakira dies suddenly during the military drill. Kichinosuke who learns it weeps bitterly. And he goes along with the words of Nariakira that he should do everything on behalf of him. He tries to do ask Mito domain to raise an army but Nariaki is forced to confine in his house. Yoshinobu will be punished in the same way.
Kichinosuke (center) tries to make an appeal to SHIMAZU Nariakira
Naosuke oppresses those who supported Yoshinobu that is called Ansei no Taigoku, the Ansei Purge. Because of this, HASHIMOTO Sanai makes Kichinosuke and Gesshō, a high-ranking priest who is a royalist escape to Sartsuma from Kyoto. Kichinosuke comes home and gives shelter to Gesshō. Shōsuke asks his wife Masu to arrange for him to meet YAMADA Tamehisa, a chief vassal through her father. However Narioki, father of Nariakira tells the vassals that he is going to swear allegiance to the shogunate. At last Kichinosuke and Gesshō are ordered to be executed (Hyūga Okuri) but Kichinosuke will be spared his life if he kills Gesshō. He refuses it.
Gesshō (ONOE Kikunosuke V) and Kichinosuke in the boat
On the way to the execution site by boat, they drown themselves but only Kichinosuke survives. After that he tries to kill himself but is stopped by Shōsuke. He arranges to make Kichinosuke exile to hide himself from the shogunate. Kichinosuke changes his name into KIKUCHI Gengo.
