Honme Yarijirō [本目縫次郎]

Honme Nuijirō (本目縫次郎) recorded in the primary appointment register as Nuinosuke (本目縫之助), elsewhere as Yarijirō (本目鑓次郎), and argued by the Mata-shichi blog to be properly Nuijirō (本目縫次郎) — was a Jikishinkage-ryū swordsman attached to the Odani (男谷) house, with the notation ni-jutsu (二術; two arts/techniques) marking that he also held a spear post (he is thus one of the few men to appear on both the kenjutsu and the sōjutsu sides of the institute).

He served as shihandai (師範代; senior assistant instructor) at the Honjo Kamezawa-chō (本所亀沢町) dōjō of Odani Seiichirō Nobutomo — the proposer of the Kōbusho, thirteenth-generation head of the line and heir to that dōjō from his own teacher Danno Gennoshin (団野源之進; sobriquet Shinpansai, 真帆斎). He is generally identified with the “Honme” of Nagakura Shinpachi’s Shinsengumi tenmatsu-ki: in that episode, when Kondō Isami and his companions came to the Odani dōjō for a cross-school bout, Honme, standing in for the house, knocked away Kondō’s shinai but, seeing Kondō take an unarmed stance, withdrew with a bow and an acknowledgement of his opponent’s skill.

His tie to the Odani house was by marriage. He wed the eldest daughter of Odani Hikoshirō (男谷彦四郎), while Odani Seiichirō — who married the second daughter, Tsuru, and continued the Odani line — became his brother-in-law; since Seiichirō and Katsu Kaishū (勝海舟) were themselves cousins through the Odani line, Honme stood as a relation by marriage to Katsu as well. His year of birth is unrecorded, but he appears to have belonged to Seiichirō’s and Katsu’s generation: in the eleventh month of Ansei 3 his son Honme Tomigorō (本目富五郎) was already being appointed a Kōbusho kenjutsu sewa-kokoroe (世話心得; supervisory assistant), which implies Honme was a good deal senior to Kondō.

Beyond the marriage tie, the spear post and the Shinsengumi tenmatsu-ki anecdote, little about Honme is independently documented, and even his name is unsettled; the points above rest on the Mata-shichi reconstruction from the appointment record and Nagakura’s memoir rather than on a dedicated biography.