Departures of note

Ishikawa Goemon, a bandit leader during Japan's Azuchi-Momoyama period, is best known for a failed assassination attempt on the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. According to one account, he sneaked into Fushimi Castle to avenge his wife's death and his son's capture, but knocked a bell off a table, alerting the guards. He was captured and, along with his young son, sentenced to death by boiling in an iron cauldron. In a dramatic act, he held his son above his head to save him from the heat, though another version says he deliberately plunged the boy into the water to kill him quickly, then stood defiantly holding the body until he succumbed. He was executed on October 8, 1594, at Nanzen-ji in Kyoto.

Historical records of Goemon's life are scarce and contradictory. He first appears in a 1642 biography of Hideyoshi, simply described as a thief. Over time, his legend grew, and various anti-authoritarian exploits were attributed to him, including a supposed poisoning attempt on Oda Nobunaga. One origin story claims he was born Sanada Kuranoshin in 1558 to a samurai family in Iga Province, and after his father was killed by the Ashikaga shogunate, he trained in Iga ninjutsu under Momochi Sandayu. He fled after his master discovered his romance with a mistress, stealing a prized sword. Another version says he came from Kawachi Province and was not a runaway ninja at all. He then led a band of thieves in the Kansai region, robbing the rich and sharing loot with the poor.

Before his death, Goemon reportedly wrote a farewell poem stating that thieves would always exist. His legend persisted through the Edo period, and he became a subject of kabuki plays, most notably 'Kinmon Gosan no Kiri' (1778), where he sits atop the Sanmon gate at Nanzen-ji, smoking an oversized pipe and declaring the spring view worth ten thousand gold pieces. In modern popular culture, he is often portrayed as either a young, slender ninja or a hulking bandit, and his name lives on in the 'goemonburo,' a large iron bathtub shaped like the cauldron used in his execution. A tombstone dedicated to him is located at Daiunin temple in Kyoto.