Sōma Kokkō

was an entrepreneur, philanthropist, patron of artists and patron of Pan-Asian politics during the pre-war Empire of Japan. She was the wife of Aizō Sōma, the founder of Nakamura-ya, a noted bakery in Tokyo.

Biography Sōma was born as . Her father was a samurai in the service of Sendai domain, and her mother was a scholar of Chinese classical literature. She came into contact with Christianity through missionaries at an early age, and was sent to the Ferris Girls' School in Yokohama, and later transferred to the Meiji Girls' School in Kojimachi, Tokyo, where she studied under Hoshino Tenchi, Kitamura Tokoku and Tōson Shimazaki. She was given the pen name of Kokko by one of her teachers, with the cautionary note that for women authors, only a moderately shining light would be considered acceptable by society. In 1898, she married Aizō Sōma, a fellow Christian, and moved to what is now Azumino, Nagano, where her husband was combining social activism with sericulture.

However, she had frequent problems with her health and with adjusting to rural life, and the couple relocated to Tokyo in 1901. In Tokyo, Sōma purchased the Nakamura-ya bakery near the main gate to Tokyo Imperial University. Sōma died in 1955.

In popular culture In the TV movie, Rokuzan no ai ("Rokuzan’s Love") aired by Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) in February 2007. Kokkō Sōma is played by Miki Mizuno, with the story line depicting a forbidden romance between Rokuzan Ogiwara (played by Hiroyuki Hirayama), with Kokkō becoming the model for Ogiwara’s famous sculpture, Woman.