:Kinjirō Ashiwara

{{Short description|Japanese self-proclaimed emperor (1850–1937)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Kinjirō Ashiwara

| image = Kinjiro Ashihara.JPG

| caption = Ashiwara in his court dress ({{lang|ja|大礼服姿}}), which became his signature clothing starting with the end of the Meiji era{{cite book |editor-last1=Nakamura |editor-first1=Masaki |display-editors=etal |series=一億人の昭和史 [100 Million People's Shōwa-era History] |title=1930年: 恐慌と軍拡のはざまで |trans-title=1930: Between Depression and Military Expansion |date=February 20, 1983 |location=Tokyo |publisher=The Mainichi Newspapers Co. |language=ja |id={{NCID|BN12487666}} |oclc=959637831 |volume=39 |page=183 |quote=[...] その服は明治の末から将軍の晴れ着であり看板だった}}

| native_name = {{Nobold|{{Lang|ja|葦原金次郎}}}}

| native_name_lang = ja

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1850|11|03}}

| birth_place = Takaoka, Etchū Province, Japan

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1937|02|02|1850|11|03}}

| death_place = Tokyo, Empire of Japan

| signature = Kinjiro Ashiwara signature.png

| signature_size = 35px

| signature_alt = 葦原皇帝 (Emperor Ashiwara)

| known_for = Grandiose delusions

| module = {{Infobox Japanese

| kanji = {{linktext|葦原}} {{linktext|金次郎}}

| kana = あしわらきんじろう

| romaji = Ashiwara Kinjirō

}}

Kinjirō Ashiwara ({{langx|ja|葦原金次郎|link=no}}, Hepburn: {{Transliteration|ja|Ashiwara Kinjirō}}, {{IPA|ja|a̠ɕiɰᵝa̠ɾa̠ kʲĩɴʑiɾoː|IPA}}; November 3, 1850{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=デジタル版日本人名大辞典+Plus [Digital Edition: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese People+Plus] |title=葦原金次郎あしわら-きんじろう |trans-title=Ashiwara Kinjirō |editor-last1=Ueda |editor-first1=Masaaki |display-editors=etal |lang=ja |via=Kotobank |publisher=Kodansha |id={{NCID|BA54622879}} |isbn=4062108496 |location=Tokyo |date=December 2001 |url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%91%A6%E5%8E%9F%E9%87%91%E6%AC%A1%E9%83%8E-1049933#E3.83.87.E3.82.B8.E3.82.BF.E3.83.AB.E7.89.88.20.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E4.BA.BA.E5.90.8D.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E5.85.B8.2BPlus |access-date=May 23, 2023 |archive-date=March 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220306144200/https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%91%A6%E5%8E%9F%E9%87%91%E6%AC%A1%E9%83%8E-1049933#E3.83.87.E3.82.B8.E3.82.BF.E3.83.AB.E7.89.88.20.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E4.BA.BA.E5.90.8D.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E5.85.B8.2BPlus |url-status=live }}{{efn|{{nihongo|Dictionary of Clinical Psychiatry|臨床精神医学辞典|Rinshō seishin igaku jiten|extra=1985}} states that he was born in 1852.}} – February 2, 1937) was a self-proclaimed "emperor" of Japan who rose to a celebrity status with his grandiose delusions and theatrical antics that were covered by the Japanese press for decades, beginning in the Meiji era. He styled himself first as {{nihongo|Shogun Ashiwara|葦原{{linktext|将軍}}|Ashiwara Shōgun}}, then later as {{nihongo|Emperor Ashiwara|葦原{{linktext|皇帝}}|Ashiwara Kōtei|extra=or {{lang|ja|葦原{{linktext|天皇}}}}, Ashiwara Tennō}} and {{nihongo|Sovereign Ashiwara|葦原{{linktext|帝}}|Ashiwara Mikado}}.

After disrupting Emperor Meiji's procession and attempting to approach him, Ashiwara was involuntarily hospitalized in the Tokyo Metropolitan Psychiatric Asylum (present-day Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital) in 1882 and, despite a few escapes and re-detainments, remained there until his death in 1937.

Early life and marriage

Ashiwara was born in Takaoka, Etchū Province (present-day Takaoka, Toyama){{cite journal |url=https://gssc.dld.nihon-u.ac.jp/e-magazine/033/essey3.html |title=斎藤茂吉と葦原将軍 |trans-title=Mokichi Saito and Ashiwara Shōgun |first=Hiroaki |last=Koizumi |journal=GSSC Magazine ({{lang|ja|日本大学大学院総合社会情報研究科電子マガジン}} [Electronic Magazine of Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, Nihon University] |publisher=Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, Nihon University |volume=33 |access-date=May 24, 2023 |language=ja |date=September 10, 2008 |archive-date=April 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220415100339/https://gssc.dld.nihon-u.ac.jp/e-magazine/033/essey3.html |url-status=live }} as the third son of a samurai of Takaoka clan. As a young adult, Ashiwara worked for a comb wholesaler in Fukaya, Saitama Prefecture.{{cite encyclopedia |title=あしわらしょうぐん【葦原将軍】 |trans-title=Ashiwara Shōgun |lang=ja |via=Kotobank |encyclopedia=Heibonsha World Encyclopedia |date=October 1998 |edition=2nd |url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%91%A6%E5%8E%9F%E5%B0%86%E8%BB%8D-1049934 |access-date=May 23, 2023 |isbn=978-4582041019 |id={{NCID|BA38818315}} |publisher=Heibonsha |archive-date=March 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220306144200/https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%91%A6%E5%8E%9F%E5%B0%86%E8%BB%8D-1049934 |url-status=live }} According to a Yomiuri Shimbun report, he worked as a confectioner.

He suffered a nervous breakdown around the time he moved to Tokyo at the age of 20. He was married at the age of 24 but his wife "ran away"; they divorced later. He began calling himself "Shogun Ashiwara" around 1875 as his mental condition seemingly deteriorated.{{cite book|title=幻視する近代空間迷信・病気・座敷牢, あるいは歴史の記憶 |trans-title=Illusions of Modern Space: Superstition, Disease, Prison, or Historical Memory |first=Kunimitsu |last=Kawamura |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CVMEAQAAIAAJ |via=Google Books |language=ja |access-date=May 24, 2023 |page=147 |year=1990 |location=Tokyo |publisher=Seikyūsha |oclc=674186137 |id={{NCID|BN04608095}} }}

Initial newspaper reports

The earliest extant mention of Ashiwara in the Japanese media occurred on June 1, 1880, in an article titled "Famous Man Shogun Ashiwara: Huge Scene at the Ministry of the Treasury ({{lang|ja|名物男葦原将軍/大蔵省で大気焰}})" on Tokyo Eiri Shimbun, a minor daily newspaper of the Meiji era.{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=ブリタニカ国際大百科事典小項目事典 [Britannica International Encyclopædia: Short Entries Edition] |title=東京絵入新聞とうきょうえいりしんぶん |trans-title=Tokyo Eiri Shimbun |lang=ja |via=Kotobank |editor=Britannica Japan Co. |publisher={{ill|LogoVista|ja|ロゴヴィスタ}} |oclc=676617067 |location=Tokyo |series=LogoVista電子辞典シリーズ |date=2007 |url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E7%B5%B5%E5%85%A5%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E-103318 |access-date=May 26, 2023 |archive-date=April 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220419002201/https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E7%B5%B5%E5%85%A5%E6%96%B0%E8%81%9E-103318 |url-status=live }} According to the article, he caused a public disturbance with his "usual" angry outbursts at the Ministry of the Treasury and was taken to the police station.{{cite book|title=幻視する近代空間迷信・病気・座敷牢, あるいは歴史の記憶 |trans-title=Illusions of Modern Space: Superstition, Disease, Prison, or Historical Memory |first=Kunimitsu |last=Kawamura |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CVMEAQAAIAAJ |via=Google Books |language=ja |access-date=May 24, 2023 |page=139 |year=1990 |location=Tokyo |publisher=Seikyūsha |oclc=674186137 |id={{NCID|BN04608095}} |quote={{lang|ja|芦原金次郎が新聞紙上に初めて登場するのは、一八八〇年(明治十三)六月一日の『東京絵入新聞』の「名物男葦原将軍/大蔵省で大気焰」[...] }}}}

On June 12, Tokyo Jiyu Shimbun reported that Ashiwara had come into a {{ill|telegraph bureau office|ja|電信局}} in Tokyo and declared that he was "Shogun Ashiwara, Senior Third-Rank {{ill|Imperial Appointee|ja|勅任官}} and First-Class Minister of the Left"{{efn|"{{lang|ja|正三位勅任官勲一等左大臣蘆原将軍}}". {{nihongo|Imperial Appointee|勅任官}} or {{ill|Chokuninkan|ja|勅任官}} was a class of officials appointed by a decree of the emperor; it was created in 1869 and abolished in 1949.{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) [Complete Japanese Encyclopedia (Encyclopedia Nipponica)] |title=「勅任官」の意味・わかりやすい解説 |trans-title=Definition of Chokuninkan, a simple explanation |lang=ja |via=Kotobank |publisher=Shogakukan |date=1984–1994 |url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8B%85%E4%BB%BB%E5%AE%98-569368 |access-date=June 11, 2023 }}}} and that he needed to send an urgent telegram to Li Hongzhang, a well-known diplomat of the Qing dynasty in China, over "a matter of great concern". The alarmed office staff called the police.{{cite book|title=新聞が語る明治史: 明治元年–明治25年 |trans-title=The History of the Meiji Era as Told by Newspapers: The First to 25th Year of the Meiji Era |editor-last1=Masayasu |editor-first1=Araki |display-editors=etal |url=https://archive.org/details/shinbun-ga-kataru-meijishi-part-1 |language=ja |access-date=November 27, 2023 |year=1976 |page=302 |publisher={{ill|Harashobo|ja|原書房}} |series=明治百年史叢書 |isbn=9784562202577 |via=Internet Archive |oclc=703852137 |id={{NCID|BN00949108}} |quote={{lang|ja|千住の電信分局へ一人の男が飛で来て、[...] 今日眉を焼くの大事件あって至急支那の李鴻章へ電報 [...]}} }}

Hospitalization

In July 1881, Ashiwara disrupted a procession of Emperor Meiji, who was on a tour of the Tōhoku region, and attempted to approach him.{{cite book|title=歴史と人物 |trans-title=History and People |volume=9 |oclc=5821189 |year=1979 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZEBEAQAAIAAJ |access-date=May 25, 2023 |language=ja |page=139 |publisher=Chuokoron-Shinsha |quote=明治十四年七月、明治天皇の東北巡幸の鹵簿(行列)へ、突然発狂した金次郎が近づこうとして、[...] }} Ashiwara was arrested and admitted to the Tokyo Metropolitan Psychiatric Asylum (present-day Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital) in 1882, having been diagnosed with hereditary mania.{{cite book |editor-last1=Nakamura |editor-first1=Masaki |display-editors=etal |series=一億人の昭和史 [100 Million People's Shōwa-era History] |title=1930年: 恐慌と軍拡のはざまで |trans-title=1930: Between Depression and Military Expansion |date=February 20, 1983 |location=Tokyo |publisher=The Mainichi Newspapers Co. |language=ja |id={{NCID|BN12487666}} |oclc=959637831 |volume=39 |page=183 }} The psychiatrists who later evaluated him, however, disagreed on the diagnosis of his condition; opinions were largely divided between paranoid schizophrenia and chronic mania.{{cite book|title=私說松沢病院史 1879–1980 |trans-title=Private History of Matsuzawa Hospital 1879–1980 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=661osgxKgMkC |last=Okada |first=Yasuo |language=ja |access-date=May 26, 2023 |year=1981 |publisher={{ill|Iwasaki Gakujutu Shuppansya|ja|岩崎学術出版社}} |page=115 |via=Google Books |oclc=24983276 |quote=[...] それには妄想型分裂病説と慢性躁病説とある。 }} Dictionary of Clinical Psychiatry noted that, although delusional, he did not suffer from a personality breakdown caused by dementia.{{cite encyclopedia |title=葦原金次郎 (1852–1937) |encyclopedia={{lang|ja|臨床精神医学辞典}} [Dictionary of Clinical Psychiatry] |editor-last=Nishimaru |editor-first=Shihō |url=https://www.actioforma.net/kokikawa/seisin/nishimaru2.html |access-date=May 25, 2023 |lang=ja |year=1985 |edition=2nd |isbn=9784525385125 |via=actioforma.net/kokikawa |location=Tokyo |publisher=南山堂 [Nanzando] |archive-date=March 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301065738/http://www.actioforma.net/kokikawa/seisin/nishimaru2.html |url-status=live }}

Ashiwara escaped from the hospital three times—in 1885, 1892, and 1904—but was re-detained each time.{{cite book|title=歴史と人物 |trans-title=History and People |volume=4-6 |oclc=5821189 |year=1979 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jXmuAAAAIAAJ |access-date=May 28, 2023 |language=ja |page=139 |publisher=Chuokoron-Shinsha |quote=明治十八年、二十五年、三十七年と病院から三回も逃げているが、}} From May 7 to June 20, 1903, the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the country's major newspapers, serialized an article titled "Mankind's Greatest Dark World: Psychiatric Hospital ({{lang|ja|人類の最大暗黒界瘋癲病院}})", in which the living conditions and treatments of patients at the hospital (then-named Sugamo Prefectural Hospital) were described in detail. It included an entry on Ashiwara:

{{blockquote|Since his hospitalization, [Ashiwara] has become famous as a madman. [...] he thinks of the hospital as his own domain, and walks about arrogantly and brazenly, blabbing big lies out of his mouth about how the emperor of France has come to see him, or how he had a sumo match with the president of the United States. [...] but what I detest is that he scolds other patients and forcibly takes their tableware and utensils away from them.}}

File:Ashiwara Kinjiro in late years.jpg

His grandiose delusions allegedly worsened after he learned of Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. He started to grow a long white beard and wear a court dress which he somehow had obtained from an unknown source.{{cite book|title=昭和「軍人」列伝 |trans-title=Biographies of Showa-Era Military People |publisher=Takarajimasha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vbyRoAEACAAJ |last=Ogawa |first=Kandai |series=別冊宝島 |language=ja |volume=2156 |date=April 18, 2014 |chapter=「葦原将軍」というトリックスター稀代のニセ軍人が愛された理由 |trans-chapter=Trickster "Ashiwara Shōgun": Why the Rare Fake Military Man Was Loved |isbn=978-4800225238 |page=104 }} During the Taishō era (1912–1926), he held press conferences at the hospital whenever there was political turbulence.{{cite journal |title=健康に対するアンチテーゼ: 病気・死の排除と社会統制 |trans-title=An Antithesis to Health : the Exclusion of Diseases and Death, and Social Control |url=https://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/opac_download_md/429/020_p051.pdf |year=1998 |access-date=May 28, 2023 |page=58 |language=ja |doi=10.15017/429 |doi-access=free |last=Nishimura |first=Hideki |publisher=Kyushu University |journal=健康科学 [Journal of Health Science] |volume=20 |via=Kyushu University Institutional Repository |archive-date=February 8, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230208225349/https://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/opac_download_md/429/020_p051.pdf |url-status=live }} Newspaper reporters would visit Ashiwara when they ran out of news material. Being a celebrity whose comments on controversial topics of the world politics and the current affairs—such as occasions of lèse-majesté or alleged tyranny of the military—were delusional, yet uninhibited and often amusing, he was an easy source of news stories for them. Some of the reporters even asked Count Nogi Maresuke and Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi to have a meeting with Ashiwara, much to their chagrin.{{cite book|title=昭和「軍人」列伝 |trans-title=Biographies of Showa-Era Military People |publisher=Takarajimasha |last=Ogawa |first=Kandai |series=別冊宝島 |language=ja |volume=2156 |date=April 18, 2014 |chapter=「葦原将軍」というトリックスター稀代のニセ軍人が愛された理由 |trans-chapter=Trickster "Ashiwara Shōgun": Why the Rare Fake Military Man Was Loved |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vbyRoAEACAAJ |isbn=978-4800225238 |page=104 }}

Soon after the Shōwa era began in 1926, Ashiwara started to call himself "emperor" and sold papers with his {{ill|chokugo|ja|勅語}} (Imperial edict) written on them to visitors.{{cite book|title=昭和「軍人」列伝 |trans-title=Biographies of Showa-Era Military People |publisher=Takarajimasha |last=Ogawa |first=Kandai |series=別冊宝島 |language=ja |volume=2156 |date=April 18, 2014 |chapter=「葦原将軍」というトリックスター稀代のニセ軍人が愛された理由 |trans-chapter=Trickster "Ashiwara Shōgun": Why the Rare Fake Military Man Was Loved |quote=昭和に入ると、葦原は将軍どころか「天皇」を自称するようになる。|isbn=978-4800225238 |page=104 }} He remained in the hospital until his death in 1937. The vice president of the Matsuzawa Hospital performed an autopsy on Ashiwara's body and stated that he observed no pathological findings in Ashiwara's brain.