Danjūrō I was stabbed to death in his dressing room by a rival actor, and his 15-year-old son took the name that is now in its 13th generation

Ichikawa Danjūrō I was born in Edo in 1660 and founded the aragoto acting style of kabuki in 1673. On the 19th day of the second month of 1704, 24 March by the Western calendar, the actor Ikushima Hanroku stabbed him to death in his dressing room at the Ichimura-za during a run of "Watamashi Junidan". Accounts of the motive differ. Most agree it turned on Danjūrō's changed attitude toward Hanroku's son, who had become his follower and taken the Ichikawa name. Hanroku was executed in Edo on 6 May 1704. Danjūrō's son, born in November 1688, took the name Ichikawa Danjūrō II in the seventh month of 1704 at the Yamamura-za. He was in his sixteenth year by Japanese count. The name has passed from father to son or chosen heir for more than three centuries. Danjūrō XII died in 2013. His son, Ichikawa Ebizō XI, was due to take the name in 2020. Covid postponed it. On 31 October 2022 he became Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII, and his own son debuted at the same ceremony as Ichikawa Shinnosuke VIII.