Who was Tomoe Gozen?
Long before animé heroines, onna-bugeisha rode into battle beside male samurai. The most storied, Tomoe Gozen, appears in the 14th-century epic Tale of the Heike: “strong as a man, skilled with bow and sword, a fearless horse-rider.”
At the 1184 Battle of Awazu, she allegedly decapitated an enemy general mid-charge. Centuries later, Nakano Takeko led an all-female unit wielding naginata against Imperial troops in 1868, dying with a bullet to the chest while ordering her sister to bury her head so it wouldn’t be a trophy.
