Abe no Seimei.

Abe no Seimei (安倍晴明, Abe no Seimei) is remembered in two visual modes that constantly overlap. In the historical mode, he appears as a learned court specialist of the Heian capital, robed, composed, and severe, a man whose authority lies in charts, timing, and knowledge of hidden correspondences. In the legendary mode, the same figure becomes slim, elegant, almost unearthly, marked by the five-pointed Seiman crest and attended by an atmosphere of uncanny control. The court official becomes a magician without fully ceasing to be a bureaucrat.

That doubleness explains why Seimei remains so vivid. He does not look like a battlefield hero or a mountain ascetic. His power is subtle, urban, and interpretive. He reads the dangerous movement of stars, spirits, directions, and occasions. Later stories intensify that impression until even his face seems to belong less to ordinary age than to a calm intelligence standing just beyond ordinary human limits.

Seimei's historical interactions center on service to the Heian court. As an onmyoji, he advises rulers and aristocrats on auspicious timing, omens, exorcisms, geomantic concerns, and the ritual handling of dangerous anomalies. He is the specialist called when the visible world no longer seems self-explanatory. Strange celestial events, spirit afflictions, uncanny disturbances, and court anxieties all pass through his interpretive discipline. In that role he is less a solitary sorcerer than a government expert in invisible risk.

Folklore makes these interactions more dramatic. Stories give him rivalries with Ashiya Doman, command over shikigami and weak oni, and insight so sharp that deception collapses in front of him. His fox-spirit mother Kuzunoha further shifts the tone from administrative ritual to liminal wonder. These later tales matter because they reveal how Japanese memory wanted to understand specialized court knowledge: not as dry technique, but as a form of intelligence so refined it became magic.