Oishi Kuwajiro

You're saying "Who is THAT supposed to be?!", aren't you? Well, if
you've seen the Shinsengumi Keppuroku miniseries or if you've read up
on the Ito assassination over at www.christophermayo.com, then you'll
know this is the guy who actually bumped off Ito. (Some sites
mistakenly claim that Saito killed Ito, but all he actually did was
get the goods on him so Hijikata would be able to justify ordering
his death. (And BTW ladies, the guy who plays Kuwajiro for his five
seconds of fame in Shin Kepp is VERY drool-worthy!)

ANYWAY, I was just going over the Who's Who section of
www.tamahito.com and I found out a bit more about him. The translator
isn't very clear, but he seems to have been known as the "Sword
Ogre". (I would LOVE to know how he came by THAT name! Then again, it
probably involved lots of blood and gore...) He fought with the
Shinsengumi until the battle at Katsunuma on March 6th. After that,
he seems to have checked in one last time before going missing.

Kuwajiro turned up again in 1870. The next part was very confusing. I
couldn't tell if Mitsui was a place or a person. As near as I can
tell, this was either someone from or a place in Satsuma. The long
and short of it is, Kuwajiro was recognized and captured. After being
interrogated under the suspicion that he was involved in Sakamoto
Ryoma's murder, he was finally executed. You'll recall of course that
Kondou was wrongly executed for the same reason.

Just thought some of you might like to know how it went after the war
for some of the "regular joes" in the Shinsengumi.

-MissBehavin (Wonders if the "Sword Ogre" and the "Demon of the
Shinsengumi" liked to swap stories about the reactions their
nicknames caused...)

Saitou Hajime was also called "the ogre Saitou Hajime" on one of
1to5.net's files concerning the battles at Aizu...the webmaster says
something like "he seemed to have been called that" or something.

In the manga Kaze Hikaru, Okita was called "son of the demon king" by
someone because he was able to "stop" his sword before cutting someone
(Okita was threatening someone)...and the guys says he must be the son
of the demon king to be able to do that

There is a general Shinsengumi site in Japanese which calls Saitou
Hajime as possessing "one with" the "demon's hand" or something

There was another "regular Joe" in the Shinsengumi who was called
"demolition man" (this name pops up in several places and it is
definitely a name) I guess he had a tendency to destroy things LOL!
I ~imagine~ that he may be involved with manning cannons (Nakajima
Nobori did paint a portrait of a guy working a cannon)

Anyways...in my Kyoto National Museum catalog (these pages are all in
Japanese so I didn't scan them for streamload as most of us can't read
it anyways) there are several pages with one paragraph biographies for
many members of the Shinsengumi (beyond the management level whom we
are all familiar)...I want to learn more about the other guys and
their lives after the revolution. The Shinsengumi had such
fascinating demographics.

Imagine that you are a relative of one of these guys. You travel to
Kyoto to visit let's say your beloved little brother...you get to
headquarters and say "I came here to visit XXXXX, my beloved little
brother" and the gatekeeper says "oh you mean the ogre demolition man
XXXX? Yeah, that's what we call him here" 0_O