Ichikawa Danjuro as Oda Harunaga, Mimasu Gennosuke as Mori no Ranmaru, Matsumoto Koshiro as Takechi Mitsuhide 市川団十郎の小田春永、三桝源之助の森の蘭丸、松本幸四郎の武智光秀

This ambitious yakusha-e by Utagawa Toyokuni I (1769-1825) presents three kabuki actors in their roles from a play dramatizing the celebrated and bloody historical episode of the Honnō-ji Incident of 1582, when the warlord Akechi Mitsuhide (whose name appears here in the disguised stage form Takechi Mitsuhide) turned on and killed his lord Oda Nobunaga (rendered as Oda Harunaga). Tokugawa-era censorship forbade direct depiction of recent historical figures, so kabuki plays and their associated prints routinely altered names by a single character while leaving the historical identity unmistakable; Edo audiences understood the convention completely. Mori Ranmaru was Nobunaga's young attendant, killed defending his lord, and the role was a poignant favorite for handsome young-male specialists. Toyokuni's grouping of Ichikawa Danjūrō, Mimasu Gennosuke, and Matsumoto Kōshirō indicates a major Edo production, since these names belong to leading acting families of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The print is Edo ukiyo-e at its most theatrically dense, requiring viewers to read crest, costume, and stance to identify each character and their narrative position. Toyokuni's command of multi-figure composition is on full display: the three actors must be distinguished and balanced without dissolving the dramatic charge of the moment. The impression is documented through ukiyo-e.org from a British Museum holding, contributing to that institution's outstanding survey of Utagawa-school production.