Haruka and Haruji of the Kadotamaya as Soga no Goro and Asaina Saburo in the armor-pulling scene, from the series "Comic Performances by the Entertainers of the Pleasure Quarters at the Niwaka Festival (Seiro geiko niwaka kyogen zukushi)"

This print from Isoda Koryusai's series Comic Performances by the Entertainers of the Pleasure Quarters at the Niwaka Festival (Seiro geiko niwaka kyogen zukushi), dated 1771 by the Art Institute of Chicago (artwork 21395), shows Haruka and Haruji of the Kadotamaya costumed as Soga no Goro and Asaina Saburo in the celebrated armor-pulling scene. The Niwaka was an annual festival in the Yoshiwara during which the entertainers of the quarter mounted comic theatrical performances, and Koryusai's series documents specific named courtesans appearing in specific roles, treating the festival as a parade of cross-cast theatrical impersonations within Edo bijin-ga. The armor-pulling episode draws on the long-running Soga revenge cycle, in which the warrior Asaina Saburo seizes the armor cord of Soga no Goro in an effort to restrain him. Koryusai stages the moment as a confrontation of two figures linked by the taut diagonal of the armor cord, with Haruka and Haruji of the Kadotamaya occupying the heroic male roles while remaining recognizable as women of the licensed quarter. The print belongs to the broader documentary project that culminated in Hinagata Wakana, in which Koryusai used named courtesans from named houses as the building blocks of an enormous survey of Yoshiwara life, here extending the principle into the theatrical fiction of the Niwaka festival.