Act 4 Hokan's Hara-kiri

Act 4 Hokan's Hara-kiri by Keisai Eisen depicts the fourth act of the Kanadehon Chushingura, in which Enya Hangan – referred to in the title under one of his alternative readings – performs ritual suicide as ordered by the authorities for striking Moronao in the previous act. Documented on [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org from a Japanese Art Open Database entry, the print belongs to Eisen's eleven-act series within Edo ukiyo-e. The seppuku scene is one of the most affecting moments in the play and one of the most demanding in terms of staging: Hangan's wife and retainers must witness his death while concealing their grief, and the audience experiences the moment partly through their constrained reactions. Eisen organizes the composition around the seated central figure of Hangan, with the surrounding retainers and household members ranged in formal posture across the interior space. He relies on textile pattern, crest, and the iconography of ceremonial death – a white robe, a tantô on a tray – to communicate the gravity of the moment without explicit representation of violence. As a key sheet in the cycle, the print provides the emotional crisis from which the rest of the narrative unfolds. The ukiyo-e.org record preserves the print without confirmed publisher or date but situates Eisen's design within the deepest dramatic register of his Chushingura series and within the late Edo print industry's continuing engagement with one of its central stories.