Miyagi Asojirō (宮木阿曽次郎) (role )

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Biography:

"Miyuki, the daughter of a wealthy samurai, is catching fireflies during an outing on the Uji River. A sudden gust of wind blows off her veil, which lands in another pleasure boat. When the handsome young boat owner, Miyagi Asojirō, returns the veil, Miyuki instantly falls in love with him. As a keepsake of their meeting Asojirō writes a poem about the morning glory (asagao) on her fan. That summer they meet once more and Miyuki hands him her fan with the poem as a token of her love. Asojirō subsequently leaves for Kamakura and it is understood that he will not see Miyuki for a long time. When Miyuki’s parents decide to marry their love-sick daughter to Komazawa Jirozaemon, she runs away. She becomes blind from her bitter weeping, calls herself Asagao and wanders the countryside as an itinerant musician in search of Asojirō. What she does not know is that Asojirō has changed his name to Komazawa Jirozaemon, and thus the very man her parents had proposed as her future husband. When Jirozaemon, supposing Miyuki had forgotten him, visits an inn in Shimada he sees the poem about the morning glory on a folding screen in his room. The innkeeper tells him the poem is the favorite song of a blind girl named Asagao, who performs for travelers staying at the inn. When Jirozaemon summons the girl to sing for him she plays the koto (a type of zither) and recites the tragic story of her life. Jirozaemon recognizes her as Miyuki but he has to depart before he is able to reveal his true identity. Upon leaving he hands the innkeeper the fan with his poem about the morning glory, some money and medicine for Asagao’s eyes. In the ensuing turn of events her eyesight is restored so that she can return to Edo."

Quoted from: Printed to Perfection: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection by Amy Reigle Newland, et al., 2004, page 121.

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In Kabuki Heroes on the Osaka Stage, 1780-1830 by C. Andrew Gerstle it says on page 164 that the character of Miyagi Asojirō "...was modelled on the humanist Confucian scholar Kumazawa Banzan (1619-91)."