was the name adopted by the leader of the

ninja A , or was a spy and infiltrator in pre-modern Japan. The functions of a ninja included siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding.Kawakami, pp. 21–22 Antecedents may have existed as ear ...

during the Sengoku era of

feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC whe ...

. He was a retainer of the

Later Hōjō clan The was one of the most powerful samurai families in Japan in the Sengoku period and held domains primarily in the Kantō region. Their last name was simply , but were called "Later Hōjō" to differentiate between the earlier Hōjō clan who h ...

. According to some records, his name was originally Kazama Kotarō (風間小太郎).

The Fūma clan and Fūma Kotarō

The clan was based in

Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

, specializing in horseback

guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrori ...

and naval

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

. Donn F. Draeger, ''Ninjutsu: The Art of Invisibility'', p.129-130. According to some sources, the family has roots in the 10th century when they served Taira no Masakado in his revolt against the

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

government. The use of the name started with the first leader (''jonin'') of the clan: originally surnamed "風間" (Fūma), with a different

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

, it was later changed to

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...

風魔. Each subsequent leader of the school adopted the same name as its founder, making it difficult to identify them individually. This

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

was in the service of the

Hōjō clan The was a Japanese samurai family who controlled the hereditary title of '' shikken'' (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate between 1203 and 1333. Despite the title, in practice the family wielded actual political power in Japan during this perio ...

Odawara is a Cities of Japan, city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 188,482 and a population density of 1,700 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Odawara lies in the Ashigara Plains, in ...

. Fūma Kotarō was the fifth and the best known of the Fūma clan leaders. Born in

Sagami Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu Province, Izu ...

(modern

) on an unknown date, he became notorious as the leader of a band of 200 ''Rappa'' "battle disrupters", divided into four groups: brigands, pirates, burglars and thieves. Kotarō served under

Hōjō Ujimasa was the fourth head of the later Hōjō clan, and ''daimyō'' of Odawara. Ujimasa succeeded the territory expansion policy from his father, Hōjō Ujiyasu, and achieved the biggest territory in the clan's history. Early life and rise In 1538 ...

and

Hōjō Ujinao was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Sengoku period, and the final head of the Later Hōjō clan. An important figure in the history of Azuchi–Momoyama politics, he lost his entire domain following the Siege of Odawara (1590). Despite t ...

. His biggest achievement came in 1580 at Battle of Omosu, when the Fūma ninja covertly infiltrated and attacked a camp of the

Takeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan active from the late Heian period until the late 16th century. The clan was historically based in Kai Province in present-day Yamanashi Prefecture. The clan reached its greatest influence under the rule of Taked ...

forces under

Takeda Katsuyori was a Japanese ''daimyō'' (military lord) of the Sengoku period, who was famed as the head of the Takeda clan and the successor to the legendary warlord Takeda Shingen. He was son-in-law of Hojo Ujiyasu, ''daimyō'' of Hojo clan. Early life H ...

at night, succeeding in causing severe chaos in the camp, which resulted in massive casualties among the disoriented enemies as they attacked each other. Later in 1590, at Siege of Odawara, when

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

laid siege to Odawara Castle, which eventually fell, the Hōjō clan was forced to surrender. When the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

came to power, the remnants of Fūma-ryū were reduced to a band of brigands operating in and around

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

. A popular but fictional story says that in 1596, Kotarō was responsible for the death of Hattori Hanzō, a famous ninja in the service of

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

, who had tracked him down in the Inland Sea, but Kotarō has succeeded in luring him into a small channel, where a tide trapped the Tokugawa gunboats and his men then set fire to the channel with oil. Kotarō was eventually caught by the Tokugawa shogunate's special law-enforcement force, guided by his rival and a former Takeda ninja

Kōsaka Jinnai and are two separate Japanese surnames, distinguished by the Japanese phonology#Vowels, length of the vowel in the first syllable of each surname. They are sometimes spelled identically in romanisation due to omission of the macron (diacritic), ma ...

(高坂甚内), and executed through beheading by an order of Ieyasu in 1603.

In folklore and popular culture

In a folk legend, he is often an inhuman figure: a supposedly part-''

oni An ( ) is a kind of ''yōkai'', demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. They are believed to live in caves or deep in the mountains or in hell. Oni are known for their superhuman strength and have been associated with powers like th ...

'' monstrous giant (over 2 meters tall) with inverted eyes.Joel Levy, ''Ninja: The Shadow Warrior'', p.165-166. In fiction portrayals, Fūma Kotarō is often depicted as Hattori Hanzō's arch-rival. As the name Fūma literally means "wind demon", Fūma Kotarō's depiction is frequently more flamboyant, fantastical, and sometimes even demonic. In contrast, Hanzō is usually rendered with a relatively subdued appearance. Kotarō is a player character in the video game '' Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny''. His 18th-century descendant Fūma Kotarō Kaneyoshi is the hero's nemesis through most of the TV series '' The Samurai''. A fictional weapon called the ''Fūma shuriken'' is a large collapsible ''

shuriken A is a Japanese concealed weapon used by samurai or ninja or in martial arts as a hidden dagger or '' metsubushi'' to distract or misdirect. History The origins of the ''bo-shuriken'' in Japan are still unclear, despite continuing researc ...

'' with four blades.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuma, Kotaro 1603 deaths 16th-century Japanese people 17th-century executions by Japan 17th-century Japanese people Go-Hōjō clan Japanese male criminals Japanese ninjutsu practitioners Japanese pirates Japanese thieves Ninja People executed by Japan by decapitation Year of birth unknown

The Fūma clan and Fūma Kotarō

In folklore and popular culture

See also

References