Jirô Osaragi(1897-1973)

After graduating from Tokyo University, he wrote his most popular novels, the historical "Kurama Tengu" (Black-Masked Reformer Devil Kurama), "Teru Hi Kumoru Hi" (Sunny Days, Cloudy Days), and "Ako Roshi" (Loyal Retainers of Ako) [a new version of the "Chushingura" (47 Ronin) story], and he was writing one last historical novel when he died at the age of 75. "Kurama Tengu" was the first Osaragi novel made into a movie, in 1924. From then till 1965 there have been almost 50 films and a TV series (1990) about the character. Although Kurama has been played by many film stars, as Matsunosuke Onoe (1925), Kotaro Bando (1932), Ken'ichi Enomoto (1939), Chiyonosuke Azuma (1956-59) or Raizo Ichikawa (the last one, 1965), the Japanese people always identifies him with Kanjuro Arashi, who played the character almost 40 times between 1927 and 1956. But without counting the Kurama stories, there are more than a hundred film adaptacions of Osaragi novels. In addition, Osaragi wrote his only screenplay adaptation of his "Ako Roshi" (of which several TV series were made [1964] included) entitled "48 famous men" in 1952.