Statue of Kusunoki Masashige

Look up at the samurai on horseback. This is Kusunoki Masashige, a warrior of the fourteenth century, and for a long time he was held up as Japan's great model of loyalty. Kusunoki helped Emperor Go-Daigo overthrow the Kamakura shogunate. The statue shows him bowing his head as he greets the Emperor on his return from exile in 1333. Three years later, Kusunoki was ordered into battle at Minatogawa against a much larger army. He believed the plan would fail, and said so. He went anyway. By the end, only seventy-three of his seven hundred horsemen were left, and he and his brother took their own lives. Legend says their last wish was to be reborn seven times to serve their country. In the late 1800s he was honoured once more, with a shrine and the highest court rank. This statue was a gift from the Sumitomo company, cast from copper from its Besshi mine, and unveiled here in 1900. Several artists worked on it for years, and the head is by the sculptor Takamura Kōun. Look at his face, lowered before the Emperor. It's a portrait of duty, set right in front of the palace.