kabukimono

thumb|The were a group that dressed in a peculiar style and spoke in a vernacular which matched their often outrageous behaviour. or were gangs of samurai in feudal Japan. First appearing in the Azuchi–Momoyama period (between the end of the Muromachi period in 1573 and the beginning of the Edo period in 1603) as the turbulent Sengoku period drew to a close, were either , wandering samurai, or men who had once worked for samurai families who, during times of peace, formed street gangs. Some, however, were also members of more prominent clans—most notably Oda Nobunaga and Maeda Toshiie.

==Etymology== The term is often translated into English as "strange things" or "the crazy ones", believed to be derived from , meaning "to slant" or "to deviate"; the term is also the origin of the name for kabuki theatre () as the founder of kabuki, Izumo no Okuni, took heavy inspiration from the (). The kanji used are ateji, used for their pronunciation, and not their inherent meaning.