1871: Kawakami Gensai

ExecutedToday.com ^ | January 13, 2008 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1871, the shadowy but legendary swordsman Kawakami Gensai was beheaded on a pretext — his use to the Meiji government at an end. The Hitokiri — “mankiller” — Gensai came to manhood during the confusing death throes of the shogunate leading into the Meiji Restoration.

That Japan’s feudal stagnation would give way to the Meiji era’s centralization and modernization may well be accounted an inevitability of history. The particular form of its birth superimposed upon the epochal conflict a bitter internal division over openness to foreigners vis-a-vis the centuries-old isolation.....

[pgyanke]

Which became the backstory of a terrific manga/anime...

[Red Badger]

It doesn’t say what crime he committed...................

[nwrep]

He misgendered the official eunuch.

[Red Badger]

It says he was ‘effeminate’ so after his faction’s takeover, they didn’t need his services any more. Just like the Nazis a little while later, they got rid of the homos that helped them get into power...................

[OKSooner]

Surely it had to do with the honor of someone at a higher social position, like in Shogun where the harmless elderly Japanese man just accepted the fact that it was his time to die after inconveniently disposing of the rotting body of a pheasant.

Or, on the other hand, maybe he was in a relationship with a chick that didn't work out right. No other choice except to be beheaded. Gotta have rules...

[Red Badger]

He was an embarrassment to the newly restored regime, even though he helped them get there..................

[OKSooner]

That sounds plausible...