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Azai Nagamasa
Shibata Katsuie

Oichi (お市, 1547–1583) was a female historical figure in the late Sengoku period.[1] She is known primarily as the mother of three daughters who married well – Yodo-dono,[2] Ohatsu[3] and Oeyo.[4]

Oichi was the younger sister of Oda Nobunaga; and she was the sister-in-law of Nōhime, the daughter of Saitō Dōsan. Oichi was equally renowned for her beauty and her resolve. She was descended from the Taira and Fujiwara clans.

Life as a spouse and mother[edit]

Following Nobunaga's conquest of Mino in 1567, in an effort to cement an alliance between Nobunaga and rival warlord Azai Nagamasa, Nobunaga arranged for Oichi,[5] then twenty years old, to marry Nagamasa. Their marriage was through political means, ensuring an alliance between the Oda and the Azai clans. She bore Nagamasa one son (Manjumaru) and three daughters – Yodo-dono, Ohatsu and Oeyo.




As Hideyoshi's army lay siege to the castle, Katsuie implored Oichi to flee with her daughters and seek Hideyoshi's protection. Oichi refused, insisting on dying with her husband after their daughters were sent away. "The daughters were taken care of by Hideyoshi."[5]:286,313

Oichi's daughters[edit]

Oichi's three daughters each went on to become important historical figures in their own right. The eldest and the most famous, Chacha became a concubine to Hideyoshi, whose army had killed not only both her birth parents but also her stepfather. She became known as Yodo-dono or Yodogimi (from Yodo Castle, given to her by Hideyoshi), and she bore him his only two sons, including his heir Hideyori. Yodo-dono and Hideyori later died in the Siege of Osaka, in 1615, the final battle of the Warring States era.

The second, Ohatsu, married Kyōgoku Takatsugu, a man from a noble family once served by the Azai clan. The Kyogoku clan sided with Ieyasu after Hideyoshi's death, giving her the means to serve as an intermediary between Ieyasu and Yodo-dono. She worked in vain to end their hostilities, and after Yodo-dono and Hideyori's death, managed to save Hideyori's daughter by putting her in a convent.

The youngest, Oeyo (also called Ogō), married Tokugawa Hidetada, Ieyasu's heir and the second Tokugawa Shōgun. They had many children, including the third Shōgun Iemitsu, and Kazuko, consort to Emperor Go-Mizunoo. Kazuko's daughter Okiko became Empress Meishō, thus posthumously making Oichi both a grandmother to a Shōgun and a great-grandmother to an Empress.


In popular culture[edit]

She's a playable character in the Samurai Warriors series of games, armed with Kendama and later changed to Four Bladed Hoops chained to another, where her story is fleshed out. That same version is also in Pokémon Conquest (Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition in Japan), with her partner Pokémon being Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff.[7]

Oichi (under the alias Oyu of Odani) is a playable character in the game Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny.

There's even a version of her in the Sengoku Basara series of games, starting with the second one. She is depicted as a tragic, gloomy woman who wrongfully blames herself for everything to the point she is driven mad. Originally fighting with a Nagita, she later uses hands made from a dark aura.

Oichi is also the character name of the initial gunner mercenary in the MMORPG Atlantica Online

She is also a recurring character in the Warriors Orochi series.


  1. ^ Ochinokata, Gifu prefecture website.
  2. ^ Wilson, Richard L. (1985). Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743), p. 40.
  3. ^ "The silk coloured portrait of wife of Takatsugu Kyogoku," Archived May 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. Digital Cultural Properties of Wakasa Obama.
  4. ^ "Atsuhime"-Autorin für NHKs 2011er Taiga-Drama gewählt (citing Tokyograph), Archived 2011-05-06 at the Wayback Machine. J-Dorama.
  6. ^ Yoshikawa, Eiji. (2000). Taiko, p. 421.
  7. ^ "Oichi + Jigglypuff - Pokémon Conquest characters". Pokémon. Retrieved 2012-06-17.


External links[edit]