Yaoya Oshichi Day

What Is Yaoya Oshichi Day?

Every March 29th is also "Yaoya Oshichi Day" (八百屋お七の日, Yaoya Oshichi no Hi) in Japan. On March 29, 1683, a young girl named "Oshichi" (お七) — the sixteen-year-old daughter of a greengrocer (八百屋, yaoya) — was executed at Suzugamori execution ground in Edo for the crime of arson. Oshichi had set fire to her family's home in the hope that the resulting emergency would allow her to reunite with a young man she had fallen in love with while evacuated to a temple during a previous fire. Her story became one of Edo period Japan's most famous tales of love and tragedy.

The Story of Yaoya Oshichi

The historical Oshichi's story is simple and heartbreaking: a fire in her neighborhood had forced her family to take refuge at Kirishitan-zaka temple in Edo, where she fell in love with a temple page named Ikuta Shōnosuke. When her family returned home, she was separated from him. Desperate to create the circumstances that would bring her back to the temple and reunite with her love, she set fire to her house — a criminal act that resulted in her arrest, trial, and execution by burning at the stake at age 16.

From History to Art

Oshichi's story was dramatized almost immediately after her execution — Ihara Saikaku (井原西鶴) included her story in his 1686 collection "Five Women Who Loved Love" (好色五人女, Kōshoku Gonin Onna), and her tale became a recurring subject for kabuki theater, puppet plays, novels, and popular songs in subsequent centuries. The appeal lies in the combination of innocent love, desperate action, and tragic consequence that makes her story a Japanese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet.

Love and Consequence in Japanese Literature

Yaoya Oshichi's story is part of a broader tradition in Japanese literature and performance of depicting the tragic consequences of romantic love that defies social norms — a tradition running from the Genji Monogatari through the Edo-period love suicides (心中, shinjū) dramatized by Chikamatsu Monzaemon to modern fiction. The destructive power of love — beautiful and devastating simultaneously — is a recurring motif in Japanese cultural imagination.

Fun Facts

• Minimum age for execution: Oshichi's execution at age 16 was unusual — Edo period law set 15 as the minimum age for capital punishment, and there is historical debate about whether she was truly 16 (old enough to execute) or younger (in which case she might have been spared). The ambiguity has added to the tragedy of her story.
• Suzugamori: Suzugamori (鈴ヶ森) execution ground in what is now Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, was one of Edo's two major execution sites. A small stone monument at the site commemorates the thousands executed there over the Edo period, including Oshichi.