Tag Archives: Samurai

Men in Black

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With a gruelling shoot that spanned April 2007 to September 2008 after its leading man’s injury on set, filmed in the sub-tropical heat of Japan’s idyllic Ryukyu island chain, Kamui: The Lone Ninja recreates a lost world of fishing villages on the Inland Sea, a time when the samurai wars were done, and the people of Japan returned to their fields and their boats. It also evokes a savage era where all unwelcome influences were ruthlessly suppressed, and plays with the notion that the Japanese peasantry of the 17th century had formed secret societies of semi-magical assassins.

The son of a renowned left-wing artist, Kamui’s creator Sanpei Shirato (1932- ) was one of the last of the kamishibai painters, making panels of artwork for Japanese “magic lantern” shows. A narrator, or benshi, would tell a lively story to a crowd while pushing pictures through a lit frame. Soon after Shirato’s first kamishibai work, Mister Tomochan (1951), the advent of television destroyed the medium, leading Shirato to transfer his skills into comics. His early work included adaptations of the animal stories of Ernest Seton and works for girls, but it was as the creator of Ninja Bugeicho (Chronicle of a Ninja’s Martial Achievements, 1959-1962) that he achieved true fame. Even in his early days, Shirato was notable for his insistence on an external narrator, a voice outside the story itself that would comment on the action and steer the viewers like an old fashioned benshi.

His first big success in the TV world was Shonen Ninja Kaze no Fujimaru (Fujimaru the Wind Ninja, or Ninja the Wonderboy), broadcast in 1962. His original comic was called Ninja Clan, but in a tense compromise for Shirato the committed socialist, the show was renamed to establish a link with its sponsor, Fujisawa Pharmaceuticals. Each episode of the rollicking boys’ drama would open with a Fujimaru theme song that transformed into a jingle for Fujisawa. Notably, it would close with a live-action sequence in which a breathless interviewer would quiz Masaaki Hatsumi, an accomplished martial artist who claimed to know the secrets of the ninja world, and who imparted them to an entire generation of Japanese boys. Continue reading →

Crossbow

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From A Brief History of the Samurai, by Jonathan Clements — out now in the UK, and in the US in May. I love this passage because nobody knows what an ?yumi was. The historian in me says “crossbow”. The science fiction author says “giant robot.”

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One casualty of Japanese warfare [in the 9th century AD] was the ?yumi or crossbow. Seemingly imported from China, the crossbow existed in several variant forms, and was in use as both an infantry weapon and as an artillery piece. In this latter form, installed on mountings on castle walls like the Roman ballista, crossbows appear to have been formidable weapons, highly prized by generals. The presence of an ?yumi at a Tsushima watchtower seems to have been such a grand prospect that the weapon’s name was eventually assigned to the town where it was based.

However, the ?yumi is also something of a mystery. When they were commonplace, nobody thought to draw them or describe their construction – ?yumi were simply used in battles and regularly reported to devastate enemy lines. If they came into Japanese hands during the Korean wars, their intricate manufacture and maintenance was only sustainable for a few generations. As the Korean and Chinese military advisers faded into the local population, the number of competent operators or mechanics dropped off. By the ninth century, ?yumi were still reported in district armouries, but rarely mentioned on the battlefield. Instead, district commanders griped about the cost of maintenance, or filed plaintive reports with the court, requesting instructors be sent to teach their men how to use the legendary weapons.

The weapons show up in Tsushima, close to the mainland, and also in border forts in the wilder frontier of the northeast – yet even there they appear to have swiftly degraded, their triggers jamming or sights left uncalibrated. Whatever an ?yumi was, its delicate mechanism, expensive springs and bowstrings became harder to replace. By 914, a general described the few remaining crossbows as ‘empty nostalgia’, gathering dust in local armouries, entirely beyond the comprehension of local troops. A few large-scale versions persevered in northern forts, but no extant examples survive for modern investigators to assess.

It probably did not help the crossbow’s fortune that it seemed primarily designed for defence rather than attack, in an age when relatively few battles on Japanese soil were fought under siege conditions. As decades passed with no sign of the much-awaited invaders, the crossbows fell into disrepair.

Nor should we discount the influence of a form of martial snobbery among the Japanese. The acceptable face of martial valour, throughout the history of the samurai, required great achievements in swordsmanship and archery – both skills that required long years of training. The crossbow, like the arquebus many centuries later, may have been seen as an unwelcome equalizer, operable by any conscript, but sufficient to turn such a man into the nemesis of any samurai standing in his line of sight. There is an intriguing class-based dilemma about the fate of the crossbow – it required a skilled artisan to manufacture, and the wealth of an aristocrat to maintain, but was liable to be crewed by lowly border guards. Despite its high-tech allure, it seems to have been shunned by the samurai, who saw no glamour or glory in its use.

A Brief History of the Samurai

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My latest book, out now in the UK, and coming in May in the US — everything you always wanted to know about the samurai, but were too afraid of ritual disembowelment to ask.

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The samurai were the embodiment of the Japanese martial tradition. From humble beginnings as frontiersmen and border guards, they rose in power to become the true rulers of Japan, with an ideology based on military strategy and chilling battlefield aesthetics.

This new study includes their greatest battles and worst defeats, their wars and weaponry, tradition and etiquette, and their transformation from hired swords to kingmakers, from Buddhist warlords to Christian soldiers.

Jonathan Clements examines samurai facts and fictions, as a warrior society retells great battles, dramatises heroic deeds, and aspires to a code of ethics rooted in tall tales and romanticised conflict. Looking beyond the end of Japan’s civil wars in the 17th century, this Brief History depicts the rise and fall of a samurai society in which the victorious Shogun had nobody left to fight. A closing chapter examines the shadow of the samurai in modern times, as heroes, villains, and mirrors to the Japanese soul.

"I have not told the half of what I saw."

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Although they may be self-indulgent and self-regarding, I’ve really been enjoying everybody else’s round-ups of the ten years since the numbers rolled over from 19– to 20–. Herewith the last decade as it looks from here.

2000. In the first week of January, I discover that I am not going blind after all. Instead, the screen is dying on the laptop I have used since grad school. The purchase of a new desktop unit brings the internet into my home for the first time, and with it, an avalanche of Amazon parcels. Manga Max magazine is shut down in July, two days before I receive a Japan Festival Award for editing it. I write six episodes of Halcyon Sun, and briefly work on an IMAX movie project that falls at the first hurdle. Then, I’m hired to storyline and then co-script a console game that has been part-funded by a crazy arms manufacturer.

2001. The mad game is cancelled, apparently because of 9/11. By this time I am already working on another console project, writing three new “episodes” for a much-loved sci-fi franchise. It is only after the voices are all recorded, with the original cast, that the manufacturers decide to pull the plug. Something to do with the game being a stupid idea in the first place. All this gaming money gets funnelled into the Anime Encyclopedia, which eventually breaks even for me in 2007. I love working on that book so much that I look forward to getting out of bed every morning (a condition regularly repeated over the following years — I really do love my job). My first trip to America: Atlanta, for the book launch.

2002. Having superb fun working on the Dorama Encyclopedia. I am a presenter on the Sci Fi channel’s bizarre and mercifully forgotten Saiko Exciting, which first involves me reading the anime news, and later speed-translating and performing modern pop classics into Mandarin. I am offered the editorship of Newtype USA seven times, but decline because I have just got my dream job: a publisher has commissioned my obsession of many years, Pirate King. First DVD commentary, for Appleseed; I’ve since done many more for Manga Entertainment, Momentum Pictures, Artsmagic and ADV Films. Consultant on the first season of the TV series Japanorama. Film festivals in Italy and Norway.

2003. Working for a famous toy company on the “story” that will accompany their new line of toys. Fantastic fun, and very educational. Back to Japan for the first time in years, Kyoto and Tokyo; Dallas for another anime convention, and Turku, Finland. Writing the Highwaymen novelisation, and a whole rack of Big Finish scripts, including Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, and Sympathy for the Devil. Start learning Finnish, because life’s not difficult enough.

2004. Sign a deal to write a book a year about China ahead of the Beijing Olympics. This year, Confucius: A Biography. Back to Atlanta for another anime convention. Buy half a flat in London.

2005. A Brief History of the Vikings presents a fantastic excuse to poke around old sagas for a few months. Present my History of Japanese Animation lecture series at the Worldcon in Scotland, and later sell it as a series of magazine articles. I also write a massive 12-part History of Manga for Neo magazine. Start writing the Manga Snapshot column, which is still running five years later. Publication, somewhat late, of my novel Ruthless.

2006. The First Emperor of China. Off to Xi’an and Beijing. A new edition of the Anime Encyclopedia. Consultant for The South Bank Show on anime, although I am largely ignored. Write the novella Cheating the Reaper.

2007. Got married — honeymoon in Estonia after Mrs Clements vetoed Georgia. Wu. Not a book title that is easy to bring up on search engines, although you can hear me doing a great interview about it here on Radio Four. Before it’s even published, there are excited feelers from a TV company, which hires me to work on the outline of a 16-episode drama series based on the early Tang dynasty. Nothing comes of it, although I do spend the money going to Japan to get materials for another book: Nagasaki and the Amakusa archipelago.

2008. Beijing: The Biography of a City is published. But my next book, Christ’s Samurai, is left in limbo when Sutton Publishing can no longer afford to pay for it. Luckily, Haus Publishing has decided it wants a massive multi-volume history of the Paris Peace Conference, and has me writing the biographies of the Chinese and Japanese representatives. Big Finish scripts for Highlander and Doctor Who. Titan Books ask me to start this blog.

2009. Switzerland for the Locarno Film Festival. Back to Japan for a month getting materials for three new book projects. Then Shanghai, Sydney, Melbourne, Honolulu, San Francisco, Vancouver and New York on the way home. Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy is a Christmas bestseller… in Finland, although it goes down a storm at the launch in London’s Finnish Institute. Big Finish scripts for Robin Hood, Judge Dredd and Doctor Who. My collected articles and speeches appear as Schoolgirl Milky Crisis. I am rendered poor as a church mouse by an exploding boiler.

2010. Next year, I am supposed to be going to Taiwan for the filming of Koxinga: Sailing Through History, a documentary for National Geographic. I have two big publications coming on Admiral Togo and A Brief History of the Samurai — although if it’s got more than 300 pages, can we really call it brief? I’ve got a deadline for another book in January, and after that, who knows…?

I don’t know about you, but that little list sure scares the hell out of me. This, I guess, is the flipside of those cheery little adverts in the broadsheet press, that trill “Why Not Be a Writer?” That’s why not. Because unless you love your job so much that you need to be dragged away from it, you will never put in the required hours. And yet, like Marco Polo, “I have not told the half of what I saw.”

Happy New Year.

Pretty Boy

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It was one of the earliest anime ever made, a ten-minute short from 1939 in which a handsome young boy faced a giant robber with a pole-axe on Kyoto’s Gojo bridge. Much to the giant’s surprise, the boy defeats him, snatching his naginata from him and threatening him with it himself. The giant pleads for his life, and swears to serve the boy until his dying day.

Kenzo Masaoka’s early anime talkie, featuring Masaoka himself as the oppressive giant Benkei, was based on the legend of Yoshitsune (1159-1189), a figure fated to come back into fashion in 2005. Already, there is a Story of Hero Yoshitsune game on the PS2, and the fateful fight scene was recently re-animated by Tezuka Productions for screening at Kyoto’s ultra-modern train station, a few minutes’ walk where it is supposed to have really taken place.

Yoshitsune is the subject of this year’s taiga, the year-long Sunday night historical blockbuster on national Japanese network NHK, designed in equal parts for all the family, so that Dad can watch some swashbuckling samurai action, Mom can see some courtly romance and the kids can learn a little Japanese history. But Yoshitsune stands a good chance with the younger audience who normally regard taiga-watching as a chore rather than a treat. The hero was still a baby when his father was executed for opposing the ruling faction at court. His youth is shrouded in mystery, but he is believed to have been raised by fighting monks in a temple north of Kyoto. As a child (played in the NHK series by Ryunosuke Kamiki), he took the name Ushiwaka, and supposedly sneaked out of the temple grounds to learn martial arts from tengu crow demons in the forests.

NHK’s greatest coup comes in the man they have cast to play the adult Yoshitsune, heart-throb actor Hideaki Takizawa. A former pop idol with the boy-band Johnny’s Juniors, Takizawa graduated to TV stardom with a series of high profile appearances in primetime drama serials. Takizawa is a bishonen made flesh. His androgynous good looks gained him an enthusiastic female following in Strawberry on the Shortcake, in which he played a withdrawn schoolboy who falls for his stepsister, and the manga adaptation Antique, as a retired boxer who goes to work in a cake shop. He played a put-upon student in the Maison Ikkoku-inspired And I Love Her, and managed to tick almost everyone’s wish fulfilment boxes when he got to play a schoolboy who has an affair with his teacher (the gorgeous Nanako Matsushima) in Forbidden Love.

Over the next year, Takizawa will have to prove himself as a serious actor, alongside Yoshitsune’s giant bodyguard Benkei (Ken Matsudaira) and the first genuine samurai warrior-woman, Tomoe Gozen (Eiko Koike). He has the required pretty-boy looks to play Yoshitsune (who died in his thirties and remains an eternally youthful icon to the Japanese), but his role will also demand extensive battle scenes, and the charisma of a natural leader. Can Takizawa (Takky, to his fans) lead cavalry charges down perilous hillsides, and act his way out of the intrigue, as Yoshitsune’s brother becomes Shogun and orders the capture and execution of his popular sibling? The Yoshitsune legend is one of the best to grace taiga drama, but it will be a test of fire for its leading man.

(This article first appeared in Newtype USA, January 2005)

Bad Luck

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In New York for a meeting with Ari Messer, publicity guy for Stone Bridge Press. At least, that’s the official excuse. Unofficially, I am here to drop in on the New York Met, whose exhibition on the Art of the Samurai features a whole bunch of old friends.

Well, I am not sure we would have been friends in real life, but after spending many months writing the Brief History of the Samurai, I feel I already know them. A suit of bright crimson armour with golden horns dominates the entranceway, and belongs to the Ii clan, whose legendarily “accidental” charge against orders kicked off the regime-changing Battle of Sekigahara. There are sword-guards and daggers, signalling-fans and arrows, but amidst it all is Exhibit 96.

Exhibit 96 is a sword. Others on show are deemed more expensive. There are older and newer blades, many with airtight provenances that they were held by this general or that general, conferred as gifts by the great movers and shakers of history. But this one has mottled blotches of dark mist on the blade, as if the metal is alive but somehow rotting, clouds boiling on the steel as if it is not a sword but a silver abyss. Etched into the tang with characteristically choppy handwriting are two simple characters: Mura Masa.

It isn’t the first time I have seen a Muramasa. I do have a habit of hunting them down whenever I get a chance. As a child, I found one in London, sitting on a rack at the Toshiba Gallery at the V&A. In 2003, I found another, in pride of place in a Tokyo Museum. This one at the Met comes with a sign that readily acknowledged the badly-kept secrets of the Muramasa blades: that in the 18th and 19th century they were believed to carry a curse against the family of the Shogun.

Muramasa swords, it was said, were cursed. In 18th century kabuki theatre, acquisition of a Muramasa did the same for one’s well-being as building a hotel on an Indian burial ground. The swords were indubitable works of art, but brought such awful woes upon their owners that people did everything they could to get rid of them. Many were destroyed.

In the late 19th century, as the tide turned against the Shogun, Muramasa swords acquired an unexpected, rebellious frisson. Suddenly, they were the thing that all the coolest samurai wanted to carry, and as a result, there were many fakes. Exhibit 96, however, is the genuine article.