Interesting Scene in Oi! Ryouma

While watching the first episode of the 1992 historical drama anime Oi! Ryouma, I was struck by a particular scene that occurred in the middle of the episode. As seven-year-old Sakamoto Ryouma is bullied and extorted by a pair of local boys, his sister Otome comes to his rescue. After beating up the two bullies, Otome orders Ryouma to use his privilege as a samurai and execute the boys for having insulted his and his sister’s honor, a historical samurai precept known as “Kiri-sute gomen.”

Historically “Kiri-sute gomen” was not performed very frequently, but it’s a concept seen equally rarely in anime, and practically never in association with heroic characters. In anime heroic samurai may execute villains, and villains may execute innocent commoners, but depictions of heroes executing commoners is practically unheard of because such depiction isn’t “heroic,” or romantic. Personally, I’m fascinated by the fact that this Japanese children’s program includes such a scene in which the older sister orders her little brother to “man up” by legally killing the bullies who have aggrieved him.