After being carried in his mother’s womb for three years, Benkei is born with long hair and teeth and the body of a small child. It is said that he immediately laughed and commented on the brightness of the outside world, leading local people in his native Kii (modern Wakayama) to proclaim that he is a devil. Abandoned on a mountainside, he is adopted by Dainagon, a Kyoto resident who rears him until age seven when he leaves to become a monk. Thrown out of the monastery for his violent behavior, Benkei wanders Japan in search of enlightenment, though only trouble seems to find him. After accidentally causing a temple to burn down, he decides to begin a quest to defeat 1,000 of the hated Heike samurai in battle and donate their swords to a temple. Obtaining the first 999 swords proves relatively easy but the final weapon belongs to Yoshitsune, a young boy whose appearance belies his great skill as a warrior.
Japanese study overview
Musashibou Benkei is a Japanese drama of 162,701 characters, with 8,003 unique words and 1,676 different kanji. Its difficulty rating on Jiten is expert, 4.1 out of 5. The full vocabulary list ranks all 8,003 words by how often they appear, and you can study them on Jiten or download them as an Anki deck.
Similar Media
xx% = content similarity
Vocabulary highlights
Here are some of the words that appear most often in this media, as well as a sample of its rarer vocabulary.
- 弁慶strong person×415
- 玉虫jewel beetle (esp. Chrysochroa fulgidissima)×353
- 申すto say×286
- 殿feudal lord×272
- 鎌倉Kamakura (city)×237
- 御曹司son of a distinguished family×215
- 九郎Kyūrou×209
- 武蔵坊Musashibou×201
- 平家Heike family×187
- 思うto think×184
- 三郎third son×182
- 鬼若Oniwaka×177
- 義経Yoshitsune×129
- 源氏Genji (the character in the Genji Monogatari)×117
- 奥州Ōshū (alternative name of the former Mutsu province)×113
- 遮那Mahavairocana (Bodhisattva)×97
- 木曽Kiso×92
- 静Kiyoshi×83
- 知盛Tomomori×73
- 常陸Hitachi (former province located in the major part of present-day Ibaraki Prefecture)×60