James Kisai was a 16th-century Japanese lay catechist and Jesuit member who was martyred in Nagasaki. Born in Okayama as Ichikawa Kisaemon, he sought to join the Society of Jesus. Following the San Felipe incident, he was among twenty-four Catholics imprisoned in December 1596. While incarcerated, he and a fellow catechist, John Soan de Goto, formally entered the Jesuit order by taking vows. He was eventually forced to march from Sakai to Nagasaki, where he was executed on February 5, 1597.