This Art Institute of Chicago multi-sheet print by Katsukawa Shunsho stages the full gonin-otoko (five chivalrous commoners) sequence from Hatsumombi Kuruwa Soga, performed at the Nakamura Theater from the first day of the second month, 1780. Reading right to left, the five townsman heroes are Ichikawa Monnosuke II as Karigane Bunshichi, Bando Mitsugoro I as An no Heibei, Ichikawa Danjuro V as Gokuin Sen'emon, Nakamura Sukegoro II as Kaminari Shokuro, and Sakata Hangoro II as Hotei Ichiemon. Each figure's costume, crest, and pose mark his individuality within an ensemble that depends on visual harmony. Shunsho's drawing distributes weight across the five panels so that no single figure overwhelms the others, even as Danjuro V's central position lends the composition a magnetic anchor. The gonin-otoko convention drew on Edo's enduring fascination with the otokodate, the urban men of honor who provided an alternative ethical ideal to the samurai class, and its prominence in kabuki guaranteed regular printed commemoration. As yakusha-e, the work exemplifies the Katsukawa school's capacity to scale its individualized portrait method up to large multi-figure formats, producing one of the genre's most ambitious Edo ukiyo-e compositions and a foundational image for later treatments of the same subject.
