One of the more surprising aspects of nineteenth century depictions of the Taira and Genji warriors is that relatively minor figures from the Heike Monogatari loom huge in these visual images, which gradually build an aura and legend about each character quite different from the impression one receives in the written tale. Though Yoshitsune doubtless remains the most depicted figure in the nineteenth century, much attention is given to fleshing out the stories and character of lesser figures of the Heike. The case of Taira no Tomomori is quite typical of this phenomenon. He appears only briefly at several moments of the Heike narrative, once to intercede to save the lives of three members of the palace guard when the Heike flee from Kyôto, again at Ikuta Forest, where he praises the qualities of two slain Minamoto warrior brothers, and again at Ichinotani, where he prevents his men from shooting the horse that had carried him out to a Taira boat. All of these incidents serve to paint Tomomori in a sympathetic light, but nothing in them prepares us for the nineteenth century imagination of his character and status. Far more than any other of the Taira clan, Tomomori is made representative of the tragedy and horror of the Heike destruction. Though some images depict him as a living, noble warrior, the greater number choose to represent him as dead or in the act of dying, either wrapping himself with an anchor to throw himself into the sea at Yashima, or as the head of the Heike clan, on the bottom of the ocean, or in the Naga King's palace. The alternate side of Tomomori as locus of Heike pain is his perceived place as director of its wrath. In the nineteenth century imaginative vision, it is he, not Kiyomori or some more central figure of the Heike, who leads the clan as ghosts in an attack on Yoshitsune's boat. Though hardly as important a member of the Taira in its final days as Munemori or Shigemori, and thus receiving far less attention in the Heike Monogatari, Tomomori is clearly the most important Taira for the nineteenth century, transformed into the symbolic leader of his defeated clan.

One explanation for this sudden shift of concentration to Taira no Tomomori in the nineteenth century, when there are few prints of him in the eighteenth, seems to be the focus on his character in later versions of Heike kabuki plays such as "Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura". Kabuki plays were continually revised and varied throughout the Edo Period in order to appeal to audiences jaded with familiar versions, and the Tomomori story apparently met with popular approval. Of course, in analyzing popular culture, is always difficult to differentiate a trend that meets a current public demand from one that creates a new demand. For this reason, it is not easy to say whether the shift to Tomomori in nineteenth century kabuki was the origin or reflection of public interest, that is to say, whether Tomomori plays can serve as an explanation for the popular woodblock prints, or are merely a parallel phenomena, pointing at another source, an alteration in the popular audience. Clearly though, by examining the prints of the nineteenth century, we can positively state that the shift was not just one of popular heroes, but of the nature of heroism itself, and of a demand for a new sort of print to match it. Gone from these images is the playfulness that characterized many of those in the eighteenth century, and in their place is a respect deeper and more devotional than anything previously produced. In the case of Tomomori, the respect is not merely for the hero as great and noble man, but for the pained and suffering warrior, at the ultimate moment of wrath and utter defeat.

Prints of Tomomori in the nineteenth century make an interesting contrast to those of Yoshitsune in the eighteenth. Whereas both warriors are seen as great men of skill and compassion, who ultimately must fight against impossible odds and face certain death, Yoshitsune is continually depicted as a noble warrior, whether posed on horseback, childlike beside a gristled Benkei, or composed and wily in the heat of fighting. Images of his final battle or the moment of his death are utterly unthinkable in the eighteenth century--though there are nineteenth century depictions of these subjects. By contrast, portraits of Tomomori seldom show him at quiet moments of dignity and reflection; the favored pose is rather the grimace of death or of vengeance. More than just a mere taste for melodrama, nineteenth century preferences seem to hint that absolute desperation was something a mass audience could identify and sympathize with, and reflects too a new fascination with death. Though some have suggested that the violence of nineteenth century prints is a reflection of social upheaval and dissatisfaction in the latter days of the shogunate, the grounds for this general claim are rarely specified. Yet if there is a particular social situation that matches this heroic carrying on in the face of helpless odds, however, it clearly seems to be that of the peasant, whose difficult labors led to little and often no gain, with heavy taxation and periodic famine. It is the peasants, not the city dwellers, whose violence marks the nineteenth century, in multiple uprisings against their impossible situation. Whether this bears direct reflection in the subject matter of the warrior prints is questionable, but it does seem certain that the countryside audience preferred straightforward depictions of heroes with whom they could identify, rather than the sophisticated urban comedy. Portraits of Tomomori, so typical of the extreme emotions and ideals of masculinity in nineteenth century prints, surely struck a chord with them.

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