Fūma Kotarō
ninja leader
Fūma Kotarō (風魔 小太郎) was the name adopted by the leader of the ninja Fūma clan (風魔一党, Fūma-ittō) during the Sengoku era of feudal Japan. He was a retainer of the Later Hōjō clan. According to some records, his name was originally Kazama Kotarō (風間 小太郎).
The Fūma clan and Fūma Kotarō
The clan was based in Kanagawa Prefecture, specializing in horseback guerrilla warfare and naval espionage. According to some sources, the family has roots in the 10th century when they served Taira no Masakado in his revolt against the Kyoto government. The use of the name started with the first leader (jonin) of the clan: originally surnamed "風間" (Fūma), with a different kanji, it was later changed to homophone 風魔. Each subsequent leader of the school adopted the same name as its founder, making it difficult to identify them individually. This school was in the service of the Hōjō clan of Odawara.
Fūma Kotarō was the fifth and the best known of the Fūma clan leaders. Born in Sagami Province (modern Kanagawa Prefecture) on an unknown date, he became notorious as the leader of a band of 200 Rappa "battle disrupters", divided into four groups: brigands, pirates, burglars and thieves.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fūma Kotarō” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.