Thoughts on Japan

Kingaku kara no omoi - 金額からの思い

Thoughts on Japan from the National Institute of Japanese Studies. University of Sheffield

Thomas McAuley

University of Sheffield

As I said in my last column, this week we’re leaving the Japanese language behind and taking a dip into Japanese popular culture, in the form of the jidai geki 時代劇, or ‘period drama’. Technically, this can refer to any programme, or film, set in Japan’s pre-Meiji past – from the sengoku 戦国 (‘warring states’) period (1467-1568) prior to the rise of the three great unifiers (Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 (1534-82), Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 (1537-1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1542-1616)) to the Bakumatsu 幕末 period after Perry’s arrival in 1853 – but it is most commonly used to identify dramas set during the long hegemony of the Tokugawa shogunate, when the power of the bakufu 幕府 was unquestioned, Japan was at peace and many of the cultural features which we now think of as being typically Japanese developed. This was, of course, the age of the samurai 侍, and hence jidai geki are often referred to as ‘samurai dramas’.

There are an extremely large number of these, ranging from the cinematic masterpieces of Kurosawa Akira 黒澤明, to any number of television series and specials of varying longevity and quality, as well as their anime cousins, too, of course. I’m not going to talk about the films today – these are already well covered in studies of Japanese and world cinema – but instead I’m going to consider a few of the many television series. Bear with me if this gets a bit boring – there is a point beyond an otaku-ish interest in a subgenre of TV show.

The most famous and long-running jidai geki is undoubtedly Mito Kōmon 水戸黄門, which has been running almost constantly on Japanese television in one format or another since 1954. In the Edo period, ‘Mito Kōmon’ was a general term used to refer to the daimyō 大名 of Mito domain, but in the programme, and almost universally now, it is used to refer to the second holder of that position, Tokugawa Mitsukuni 徳川光圀 (1628-1701). The plot of every Mito Kōmon episode is approximately the same: travelling Japan incognito accompanied by his two trusty retainers, Sasaki Sukesaburō 佐々木助三郎 and Atsumi Kakunoshin 渥美格之進 (‘Suke-san’ and ‘Kaku-san’, for short), and a number of other companions, including a ninja bodyguard, or two, Mito Kōmon enters a town, or village, where some good, honest, hard-working merchants or peasants are being mistreated, or oppressed, by some wealthier merchant, who has enlisted the aid of the local yakuza and is in league with a high ranking samurai official. Mito Kōmon and his followers, of course, cause enough inconvenience to the villainous merchant’s plans that he decides to call in the samurai ‘heavy guns’; there’s a climactic fight between the villains, Suke-san, Kaku-san and the ninja, at a certain point in which Mito Kōmon says, ‘Suke-san! Kaku-san! Mō ii!’ 「助さん、格さん、もういい」 (“Suke-san! Kaku-san! That’s enough!”), after which his two retainers start shouting, ‘Eei shizumare! Shizumare!’ 「ええい、静まれ、静まれ」 (“Cease! Cease!”). Everyone positions themselves so that the villains are facing Mito Kōmon and his retainers, after which Kaku-san produces an inrō 印籠 (a small lacquered container bearing a crest) from within his clothes, while Suke-san says, ‘Kono mondokoro ga me ni hairanu ka’ 「この紋所が目に入らぬか」 (“Have you not caught sight of this crest?”) – the crest is, of course, the triple hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa. Suke-san and Kaku-san then continue, ‘Konata ni owasuru kata o donata to kokoroeru. Osoreōkumo saki no fukushōgun mito mitsukuni kō ni araserareru zo! Gorōkō no gozen dearu. Zu ga takai. Hikaeorō!’ 「此方におわする方を何方と心得る。畏れ多くも先の副将軍水戸光圀公にあらせられるぞ。御老公の御前である。頭が高い。控え居ろう。」 (“Learn who is the personage who has appeared before you! It is the august former deputy Shōgun, Lord Mito Mitsukuni! An elderly lord is before you. His status is high – desist!”). Faced with the authority of the Tokugawa, everyone immediately falls to their knees, and Mito Kōmon distributes punishments and rewards and sets the situation to rights. At the end of the show, the heroes return to the road, travelling on to the next village and the next trouble spot in need of attention.

If you want to see this scene for yourself, here’s a YouTube clip showing a slightly abridged version of it – although the chief villain here is not a samurai, but a member of the kuge 公家 – the Kyoto court nobility (he’s the one with the painted eyebrows and black teeth) – hence his refusal to bow down as he owes no allegiance to the Tokugawa. The older noble who comes in and puts him in his place is the Minister of the Left (sadaijin 左大臣), one of the most senior officials in the imperial ‘government’ under the Emperor – although he had no authority outside of Kyoto, and precious little inside it, too.

There are a number of other dramas with remarkably similar plots: Abarenbō Shōgun 暴れん坊将軍 (‘The Roughneck Shōgun’), where the hero is the eighth shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune 徳川吉宗 (1684-1751), who roams Edo 江戸, disguised as ‘Tokuda Shinnosuke, the third son of a poor hatamoto’ (binbō hatamoto no sannanbō tokuda shinnosuke 貧乏旗本の三男坊徳田新之助), and puts matters to rights – although here when he reveals himself and ordains punishment, the villains reaction is to order their henchmen to attack him and Yoshimune is forced to resort to his strong sword-arm, al though he always uses the blunt edge so as not to kill the relatively innocent retainers attacking who are not aware of his identity:

Momotarō Zamurai 桃太郎侍, where the hero is the twin brother of a daimyō, who has foresworn his rank and lives as a rōnin 浪人 (a masterless samurai), in order to avoid causing dissension among the domain’s retainers, and puts matters to rights in his neighbourhood. He always makes an appearance at the climax in a Noh 能 mask of an oni 鬼 – a devil – and often says that he has come to ‘Oni taiji itasu’ 「鬼退治いたす」(“Beat down the demons!”):

And a number of different shows featuring the character of Tōyama Kinshirō 遠山金四郎, Edo’s South District Magistrate (minami machi bugyō 南町奉行), who roams his territory disguised as the playboy ‘Kin-san’, and reveals a shoulder tattoo of a cloud of cherry blossoms during a climactic fight with the villains every week, immediately before their arrest by the constabulary. At the subsequent court hearing, things look bleak for the good guys, when the villains deny all knowledge of their crimes, but all is saved when the magistrate reveals his tattoo, with a cry of, ‘Kono sakura fubuki ni mioboe ga nee to wa iwasenee ze’ 「この桜吹雪に見覚えがねぇとは言わせねぇぜ」 (“Don’t say you don’t remember this cherry blossom storm!”), or something similar , and also his familiarity with the situation.

All of these shows went through a number of series (Abarenbō Shogun lasted from 1978-2003, for example) and can be found running in repeats even now – on the dedicated jidai geki satellite channel, for example. When I was first in Japan at the end of the 1980s, it was possible to watch Mito Kōmon reruns every weekday, and new episodes of it and Abarenbō Shōgun once a week, and I couldn’t help wonder what it was that made them so popular, or so prevalent. Now, the television companies would, no doubt, say that perceiving the popularity of Mito Kōmon, they produced programmes with similar plots to cash in and sell more advertising, and a paranoid cynic might say that they were all part of a plot by the Japanese establishment to keep the population submissive, by providing the subliminal message that their rulers cared for them, were watching them secretly and would act to punish wrongdoing.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but I think you could make a case that their popularity in their late 1970s and early 1980s heyday was at least partly due to the fact that they superficially portrayed a simpler ‘pure Japanese’ time, when the social order was static and unchanging and people knew how to behave – quite unlike the chaotic modern age, when many of the structures of Japanese society were changing, and younger generations were challenging some of the assumptions of the older. In addition, with their simple kanzen chōaku 勧善懲悪 (‘rewarding good and punishing evil’) plots, they were undemanding entertainment for exhausted office-workers returning home after slaving all day at the corporate grindstone.

On the other hand, it’s a little known fact that Mito Kōmon as a folk hero was created for political purposes in the bakumatsu period: the last shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu 徳川慶喜 (1837-1913), was originally from Mito, and his father, Tokugawa Nariaki徳川斉昭 (1800-1860) encouraged the creation of the myth that Mitsukuni had been deputy-shōgun – a position that never existed in reality – as a way of cementing his son’s claim to the shogunal throne. These stories took on a life of their own in the Meiji period, with professional storytellers adding Suke-san and Kaku-san to the tale and laying out the basics of the plot as I have described it above. Mito Kōmon retained his popularity in Meiji, despite the general hostility to the Tokugawa, because it could be argued that he was, in reality, loyal to the Emperor (the historical Mitsukuni compiled a ‘Great History of Japan’ (Dai Nihon Shi 大日本史) which paid appropriate respect to the Emperors’ historical role). It’s an interesting example, I think, of how historical events and figures can be reinterpreted, and re-used, in later ages. For another example, one has only to think of last year's NHK taiga 大河 drama, Atsuhime 篤姫, which was the story of the life of the wife of the thirteenth shōgun, Tokugawa Iesada 徳川家定 (1824-1858), who was widowed at the age of 23, after slightly less than two years of marriage, and took Buddhist orders under the name of Tenshōin 天璋院, spending the remainder of her life working for the shogunate in the women's quarters (the ōoku 大奥) in Edo castle. The drama made her story one of feminist empowerment - a strong woman in a getting her political way in a male-dominated institution - and this being television, of course, the actress chosen to play her, Miyazaki Aoi 宮崎あおい, doesn't resemble the historical Atsuhime (1836-1883), in the slightest. Looking at the rather grim-faced woman in the photographs, one can't help but wonder how she felt about her life.

Next week: let’s talk letters!

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Permalink | Leave a comment (3)

I used to watch Mito Komon thinking I could study Japanese from it. It didn't quite work due to the language they use, but I enjoyed watching it knowing the bad guys were going to get it in the end.
I also remember a useless but interesting piece of trivia about Mito Komon that appeared on the programme Toribia no Izumi. The TV series has Mito Komon travelling all over Japan righting wrongs, but in fact the furthest he ever got was Kamakura, mostly due to the restrictions placed on his movement by the bakufu. According to the Kamakura diaries 鎌倉日記 and the konetora kikko 甲寅紀行 he only made 9 long trips and mostly rode in a palanquin or on a horse, rather than walking.

Wendy Uchimura | March 13, 2009 9:18 AM

Thank you for your post. It was of excellent quality as always. Personally I have never been a fan of Jidai Geki – at fist due do the annoying difficulty of trying to untangle the keigo, but in the end more because of a persistent tendency to misrepresent Japapan’s history as singularly heroic. However, I definitely have plonked down in front of the tube every now and then just in time to catch an episode or two, and I must be honest that the simplistic naivety of the plots are well entertaining - I always like the quirky supporting characters for their portrayal of archetypal peasant figures. That said, I do prefer the more “realist” (or perhaps simply depressing) depictions of the samurai past that emerge from time to time in films - in particular Yamada Yoji’s Twilight Samurai (たそがれ清兵衛) … of course it doesn’t hurt that Miyazawa Rie is the supporting role.　Anyway, just as a note on the recycled plot line that seems run throughout Japanese evening television, we can detect hints of Mito Kōmon in the celebrated Furuhata Ninzaburō (古畑 任三郎) where he leads the villains on by foolling them into thinking he is something he is not, then reaching a theatrical climax when he reveals all, and also in the much less celebrated Yasuko to Kenji which simply replaces the samurai figure with the “noble” bosozoku figure (if there ever could be such a thing) http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Yasuko_to_Kenji Good for a laugh, but best not to take them too seriously I think.

Christiano | March 13, 2009 10:58 AM

da best. Keep it going! Thank you

AndrewBoldman | June 5, 2009 12:37 AM

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