Saigō Takamori 西郷隆盛 (1828-1877) is known as one of the “Three Great Nobles” of the Meiji Restoration. Despite the great renown he still enjoys today, it is not an easy task for historians to distinguish between fact and fiction in Saigō’s biography. However, even before his death during the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, Saigō Takamori had already started to eclipse his existence as a mortal being, and his life’s story was on the verge of transforming into a myth. When a star was seen shining unusually bright in the night sky in 1877, newspapers reported it as ‘Saigō’s star’ 西郷星. After his death, rumors denying his death started circulating almost immediately, with the quick addition that he had fled to the Asian continent instead.

Saigō would gain so much in popularity after his death that the government eventually pardoned him for his actions during the Satsuma Rebellion in 1889, and he became a national hero who was lauded to have been the last ‘true samurai.’ The stories about Saigō might be dismissed as ‘tall tales’ when considering Saigō’s biography from a historical point of view. However, they contributed something essential to the young Japanese nation: one of the founding myths of modern Japanese national identity.

This paper examines different types of media which circulated during the Meiji period, helping to explain why the mythological part of Saigō Takamori’s biography is not an unfortunate contaminant, but an intrinsically important part of the historical figure Saigō has become.