HELLO A3! FANDOM I'M HERE TO KICK DOWN THE DOOR AND SHOW MY TKRB ROOTS BC LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT THE NEW SPRING-SUMMER PLAY "NEW STORY: THE LEGEND OF KUROU" BASED OFF THE HISTORICAL FIGURES MINAMOTO NO YOSHITSUNE AND MUSASHIBOU BENKEI!!!! >

Let's roll the reel back to the end of the Heian period in the late 12th century. Tldr Kyoto nobles have gotten complacent, letting militia musclemen like Minamoto no Yorimasa and Taira no Kiyomori protect their lands and holdings outside the capital while writing poetry and-

letting their military atrophy. So the Minamoto and Taira gain lots of power as these "samurai" (lit. servants) of the courtiers and start wanting to be their own bosses. This results in decades of power struggles between the Taira and Minamoto to be the primo OG samurai clan>

In 1160, there's a succession skirmish where Minamoto no Yoshitomo is killed and his surviving sons are scattered to the winds. This is where the name "Legend of Kurou" comes in: Yoshitsune was the 9th son of Yoshitomo, thus nicknamed 九郎, Kurou. He grows up in the home of an-

enemy clan and spends much of his childhood at Kurama Temple where he was supposed to be training to be a monk, but more often causing trouble and training w tengus in the nearby mountain forests, which is how he supposedly gained his supernatural agility and combat acuity.>

At some point Yoshitsune (then known by his childhood name Ushiwakamaru) meets a wild mountain monk named Musashibou Benkei at the Gojo bridge in Kyoto. Benkei has just been wandering around beating whatever warriors he encounters and taking their swords.>

He's p good at this and has collected 999 of them at this point. Yoshitsune and Benkei fight on Gojo Bridge, Benkei intending for Yoshitsune to be his 1000th conquest, but Yoshitsune /wins/, defeating Benkei for the first time. Benkei swears his life to Yoshitsune then and there>

and becomes Yoshitsune's most famous and loyal retainer. The play poster v clearly references this iconic battle on Gojo Bridge, and with Tsuzuru as Benkei and Tenma as Yoshitsune, this relationship is going to be absolutely central to the play.>

[POSSIBLE SPOILERS TO FOLLOW bc history be like that but idk how A3 is gonna tell this story]

So back to the samurai power struggles, shit hits the fan for real in 1180 and decades of skirmishes b/t the Taira and Minamoto evolve into Japan's first and biggest civil war.>

The Genpei War (1180-1185) between Taira and Minamoto is smth that rings in literature and history for centuries to come- and this is where Yoshitsune finally shines. His older brother Yoritomo has put together a Minamoto force against the Taira and Yoshitsune flies to join him>

Reunited w his family for the first time in decades, Yoshitsune becomes one of the war's greatest warriors, leading impossible charges and winning battles for the Minamoto, gaining a reputation as a "genius of warfare". The Minamoto win the war in 1185 thanks to Yoshitsune and>

everyone loves and adores him, which is great. To everyone except his big bro Yoritomo who's the shogun now and feeling Very threatened by his younger bro's talent and popularity. So what he does, is remove that threat. He denies Yoshitsune his just rewards and hunts him down.>

Tons of plays and dramas are written about this harrowing time where Yoshitsune and Benkei are fugitives on the run from Yoritomo's wrath but in the end, it catches up to them. Yoshitsune is betrayed by Fujiwara no Yasuhira who had promised to shelter him, and is cornered by>

his troops.

[BIG BIG BIG SPOILERS
suicide tw]

Trapped w no hope of victory or escape, Yoshitsune requests Benkei to buy him and his family time to commit seppuku. Benkei does so, loyal to the end, culminating in his famous Standing Death where he holds the bridge to>

Yoshitsune's residence, so fearsome that the enemy had no choice but to pincushion him w arrows from a distance, and even then he stays standing in death, holding off enemies with the fear that he may still yet live. Yoshitsune and Benkei die there, but their legend is preserved>

in memory as one of Japan's most noble tragic heroes.

Tl;dr A3's new play is based off a pair of Japan's most famous historical heroes from the Genpei War, a heroic lord and his loyal retainer who stays with him till death.>

NOW FOR MY ROLE SPECULATIONS

Tsuzuru is Benkei Tenma is Yoshitsune obvs
I think Chikage is Yoritomo
Wisteria pattern on Kumon's costume makes me think Fujiwara no Yasuhira
Misumi and Masumi idek but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Genkuro the fox and Nasu no Yoichi??

Anyways THAT'S MY HISTORY LECTURE THANKS FOR READING I'M HYPED AS SHIT ASK ANY QUESTIONS IF YOU WANT

Also @_tigerine @sekaiseifuku @thisiszubat lmk if I got anything wrong I KNOW THIS IS YOUR WHEELHOUSE

OH LAST THING I FORGOT the tagline is
"In the next life, and the next life after, let's be together!"

This is a reference to Yoshitsune's famous last words to Benkei- "In the next life, and the next life after, let us meet one another. Let us go to paradise together"

THAT LAST PART IS LITERALLY "let us rise on paradise's same purple cloud"

AND BENKEI'S RESPONSE IS "please wait for me on the path to the afterlife, even if we die at different times"

I'M SO COMPROMISED CAN YOU FUCKIN BELIEVE THIS SHIT

NEW INFO
Masumi is Satou Tadanobu, one of Yoshitsune's retainers, so Misumi is probably gonna be his brother and fellow retainer Satou Tsugunobu!! https://twitter.com/mankai_company/status/1272453796132724736

[POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING AGAIN]

Tadanobu is known for dressing up in Yoshitsune's armor as a decoy to fight enemies while letting his lord escape, and is also known for beating up enemies with a go board in kabuki plays. Also sometimes portrayed as a shapeshifting kitsune!>

Tsugunobu is known for taking an arrow for Yoshitsune and dying :'D