Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985), both were remotely inspired by real events from the samurai
era, but were presented as highly symbolic, unhistorical stories of family conflict and betrayal.
There are hundreds of films, TV shows, novels and comics that could just as easily he used to
describe modern samurai. This book lacks the space to include the works of Inagaki Hiroshi, Gosha
Hideo, Okamoto Kihachi and dozens of other directors; there is no time to describe the undercover
magistrate of Tōyama no Kinsan, or the plodding Onihei the Investigator. There are, too, action-
adventure tales from the twentieth century that pointedly exclude true ‘samurai’ protagonists.
Zatōichi is a blind masseur, a member of the underclass because of his disability. Heiji Zenigata is a
commoner who merely works, alongside the samurai ruling class. But even when focusing on
characters who are not samurai, their interactions, problems or encounters will invariably cross over
into the samurai world.
Institutions and leadership in Japanese history are- subject to endless debates over
nomenclature, responsibility and interpretation. Unchallenged ‘facts’ about the samurai are , revised
and rethought on a generational basis and, of course, often reflect attitudes of their own times. In
the twenty-first century, new texts —- including this one — are more likely to look beyond the
borders of Japan, reflecting , the admission of the incumbent 125th Emperor, Heisei, that one of his
ancestors was Korean, and hence playing up, for the first time, Japan’s prehistoric contacts not with
gods, but with other races. Despite being openly mentioned in ancient chronicles, the Korean
forebears of the imperial house were never spoken of. The Heisei Emperor’s admission is remarkable
not only because it took him until 2001 to say it, but also because it cleverly occludes a deeper issue.
By acknowledging that Kammu, the fiftieth Emperor mentioned in the ancient chronicles, had a
mother of Korean descent the Heisei Emperor deftly twisted the focus of enquiry onto the eighth
century, and away from any discussion of Kammu’s forty—nine predecessors.
We should also not discount the influence of the mass media on interpretations of the
samurai — a historiography of opinions and impressions of the samurai should recognize that
modern fads exert a strong influence on what is written and what is read. Miyamoto Musashi (1584-
1645), one of thousands of samurai who wrote guides to the warrior’s life in old age, achieved
worldwide fame centuries after his death, thanks not to his Book of Five Rings, but to Yoshikawa
Eiji’s long—running fictional account of his life, serialized from 1933 to 1939 and published in English
in the 1980s. Japan’s national broadcaster NHK continues to make the samurai era the frequent
subject of its taiga dramas, often driving subsidiary publishing trends, and forcing popular
reconsiderations of famous figures. So it is that Taira Masakado came back into fashion in 1976,
Tokugawa Ieyasu got a new lease of life in 1983, and the fortunes of Hōjō Tokimune were suddenly
the subject of late-night discussions in Japanese pubs in 2001. In 2010, Sakamoto Ryōma will be back
in fashion among tourists and readers on the Tōkyō subways. In 2011, it is the turn of Tokugawa
Hidetada, son of Ieyasu, his story told through the eyes of his wife Gō.
Modern Japan is infested with great snaking crocodiles of bored children on compulsory
school trips. They slouch sulkily around the Dejima museum in Nagasaki, they lark about among the
temples of Nara when the teachers aren’t looking. For such children, the samurai past is a confusing
whirl of forgotten clans and renamed domains. In terms of their education at these many sites of the
samurai past, generalities of good conduct and obedience are emphasized above the petty
politicking of clan conflicts. Despite the push towards Bushido, Japanese teenagers can zoom in with
contrary irreverence to the inconvenient episodes of Japanese history. If the items on sale at tourist
concessions throughout Japan are anything to go by, the Shinsengumi, that bunch of deluded,
doomed warriors, remain predictably popular with Japanese teenagers, who fixate on the tragic
youth and disastrous opposition of the sh6gun’s last loyalists, and the hopelessness of their
resistance. In such a glorification of the ‘nobility of failure’, we see a resurgence of the sympathy for
the underdog that characterized much of the poetry of the Genpei War. Mishima might have been
proud, but as ever it is difficult to see where the samurai spirit truly resides.
There are those who still regard the samurai as the blinkered fools who opposed
modernization in favour of an impossible, medieval time warp. Perhaps, instead, we might see the