Yuurakutei, Yakumo

The Seventh Generation Yakumo Yuurakutei, who apprenticed and raised both Bon and Shin as children. During his students' teenage years, he and Shin left briefly for Manchuria, where they performed to entertain soldiers. Here he met Miyokichi, whom he later introduced to his students.

[Spoiler] On his deathbed, Yakumo admitted to Kikuhiko that under the Sixth Generation Yakumo, he had been apprenticed alongside the First Generation Sukeroku. He had realized the truth about Bon very early on due to the similarities between his performance style and the First Generation Sukeroku's, and while he had tried to deny it and dispel his prejudices, their relationship had turned sour all the same. He admits that the Second Generation Sukeroku's expulsion was unfair and that he, not Kikuhiko, was the one truly deserving of inheriting the title of the Eighth Generation Yakumo Yuurakutei. He dies filled with regret over losing "one of (his) darling sons," but content that Kikuhiko, at least, is glad to have apprenticed under him. [/Spoiler]