been most often portrayed in the modern popular culture: either a young, slender ninja, or a powerfully-built, hulking Japanese bandit. He has been portrayed in literature, film, manga, anime, video games, and in other media. Goemon was a subject of several pre-WWII Japanese films such as Ishikawa Goemon Ichidaiki and Ishikawa Goemon no Hoji. He is a villain in Torawakamaru the Koga Ninja, and a tragic antagonist in Fukurō no Shiro (and in its remake Owls' Castle, played by Takaya Kamikawa). He and his execution are mentioned in Ozu's silent film "A Story of Floating Weeds." He is the subject of the Shinobi no Mono novels and film series, starring Ichikawa Raizō VIII as Goemon in the first three installments. In the third Shinobi no Mono film, known in English as Goemon Will Never Die, he escapes execution while another man is bribed to be boiled in his place. In the film Goemon, he is portrayed by Yōsuke Eguchi and depicted as Nobunaga's most faithful follower and as associated with Hattori Hanzō as well as Kirigakure Saizō and Sarutobi Sasuke of Sanada Ten Braves. Goemon is the titular character of the long-running Konami video game series Ganbare Goemon as well as a television series based on it. Goemon appears in the video game series Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi, where he is a self-proclaimed king of thieves, wielding a giant mace and a back-mounted cannon, as well as in the video games Blood Warrior, Persona 5, Kessen III, Ninja Master's: Haō Ninpō Chō (depicted as a giant bandit hero, also carrying a cannon and seeking to plunder Nobunaga's castle), Shogun Warriors, and Throne of Darkness, where he has been spared by Tokugawa Ieyasu on the condition that he would join the onimitsu. The method of poison delivery sometimes attributed to Goemon's supposed attempt to kill Nobunaga inspired Aki's death scene in the film You Only Live Twice. In the manga series Lupin III, the character Goemon Ishikawa XIII is a thirteenth-generation descendant of the original Goemon, and like him is an outlaw. The spirit of the original Goemon appeared in Episode 120 of Part 2 as an antagonist, commanded by the organisation Red Ghost to possess his descendant. See also Nezumi Kozō Robin Hood References External links Goemon Ishikawa (character) at the Internet Movie Database (by Mangas TV) 1558 births 1594 deaths 16th-century executions by Japan Executed Japanese people Japanese