Komai Hangorō [駒井半五郎]

Register record

Identity & authority

Disambiguation

Hōzōin-ryū spear instructor at the Kōbusho, shihan-yaku from Bunkyū 2 (1862) and teacher of Ido Kinpei; not to be confused with Komai Shizuma (駒井志津摩), a separate Kōbusho spear appointee of the same surname.

Reliability

School and guard unit come from the Fujiokaya nikki list; the dated appointments from the Rikugun rekishi shihan-yaku register. No birth or death dates, and no later career, have been established.

Attestation

corroboration: external

Names

type	kanji	romaji	reading
myoji	駒井	Komai	こまい
tsusho	半五郎	Hangorō	〔はんごろう〕

Dates

Floruit

Ansei–Keiō (Kōbusho service attested from the Ansei roster to at least Bunkyū 3)

Origin & status

Status

小性組 横田筑後守組, later 御小性組 織田伊賀守組

Offices

• 講武所槍術教授方 (sōjutsu kyōjuhō)
• 講武所師範役, 両御番上席 — from Bunkyū 2 (1862)/12/27
• 二丸御留守居格布衣 — Bunkyū 3 (1863)/8/18

Lineage & parentage

Hōzōin-ryū (宝蔵院流) — sōjutsu

Attestation

external

Relations

Students

• Ido Kinpei (井戸金平)

Summary

Komai Hangorō (駒井半五郎) was one of the Kōbusho’s Hōzōin-ryū spear instructors, serving from the Ansei-period roster onward and rising to shihan-yaku at the end of Bunkyū 2 (1862). He is the only Kōbusho spear teacher for whom the sources name both his school and a pupil of his own on the premises, which makes him a transmission node rather than simply a name on a staff list.

School and unit

The Fujiokaya nikki, quoted in the institutional history of the academy on the schools and transmissions of the men who entered service as kyōju-kata, enters him as a Hōzōin-ryū man of Yokota Chikugo-no-kami’s company in the koshōgumi.¹ He belongs, in other words, to the overwhelming Hōzōin majority of the spear department — eleven of its twelve instructors — rather than to any of the minority lines.

A caution for anyone reading that list in transcription: 横田筑後守組 there is Komai’s guard company, not a separate instructor named Yokota Chikugo, and the tag “pupil of Nagao Kohei” (長尾小兵衛門人) that stands nearby belongs to Katsu Kenzaburō, not to Komai.

Career

The shihan-yaku register records his appointment on Bunkyū 2 (1862)/12/27, coming from the koshōgumi company of Oda Iga-no-kami, to shihan-yaku with the standing of ryōban jōseki; and on Bunkyū 3 (1863)/8/18, for diligent service, the grant of nimaru rusui-kaku hoi.² He appears in the spear section of the Kōbusho roster and again among the senior staff of Bunkyū 3.³

His pupil

His one recorded pupil is Ido Kinpei, described as a man of about thirty “who handled the Hōzōin-ryū spear well,” and who from beneath Komai in the sewa-kokoroe tier proceeded to throw the entire teaching staff with a foot-entanglement until Takahashi Deishū put a stop to it.⁴ Komai’s own conduct in that affair is not recorded.

Notes