Rō-Giō opens with Giō, and her attendant traveling from the capital to Kogawa, in Kii province, where Giō’s father has been imprisoned. They are met by a man from Kowaka who has been charged with guarding Giō’s father. Giō is at first unaware of the nature of her father’s crime. The guard agrees to let her meet with her father in exchange for a dance: Giō’s fame as a shirabyōshi has reached even this remote village. Giō is united with her father and learns of his crime: while he himself was serving as a jailer, he freed an innocent man, an act Giō praises. The two lament their imminent parting, and the guard intervenes to request that Giō dances. Although weighed by her sorrows, she is prodded into performing by her father. She dances, and then the execution is to take place. Miraculously, however, the sword cannot hit its mark—it has been shattered, we are told, by Kannon’s divine intervention to protect the innocent.