Nakano Takeko

Nakano Takeko was a Japanese female warrior of the Aizu Domain, who fought and died during the Boshin War. She was well-educated and came from a powerful samurai family. She received a strict and complete training in martial arts, in the literary arts on Chinese Confucian classics and in calligraphy. She was adopted by her own teacher, Akaoka Daisuke, who was also the instructor of Matsudaira Teru, the adoptive sister of the daimyō of Aizu. She taught naginata, a Japanese polearm with a curved blade, to the lord's wife and other women and children in the Aizu Domain. She loved to read the stories of Japanese female warriors, especially Tomoe Gozen, who was her role model. During the Boshin War, she fought with a naginata and was the leader of an ad hoc corps of female combatants who fought in the battle independently. This unit was later retroactively called the Jōshitai (Girls' Army). She led her women in a charge against the imperial forces at Yanagi Bridge, where she killed many enemies before she was shot in the chest. She asked her sister to cut off her head and bury it under a pine tree at Hōkai-ji, to prevent the enemy from taking it as a trophy. Her courage and loyalty inspired many stories and legends of female samurai. She is honored with a statue at Hōkai-ji and a festival every year.