Kira

The Kira were a cadet branch of the Ashikaga house, part of the Seiwa Genji line of the Minamoto descended from Emperor Seiwa. In the Kamakura period a son of Ashikaga Yoshiuji took the name from the Kira estate in Mikawa Province, and a younger son founded the Oshu, later Musashi, Kira line.

Kira Sadayoshi backed Ashikaga Takauji against the Kamakura shogunate's Rokuhara deputies in 1333, and his son Mitsuyoshi held office in the Muromachi shogunate. The Mikawa Kira ranked first among the Ashikaga Gosanke and split into the Saijo and Tojo branches during the Nanboku-cho wars.

The Saijo joined the Mikawa Ikko-ikki rising and were destroyed, while the Tojo and Oshu Kira became hatamoto. Kira Yoshinaka's attack by the Ako ronin in 1703 became the story of Chushingura; surviving Kira houses remained hatamoto into the nineteenth century.