Contemplations of a Closet Curmudgeon

Akira Kurosawa had been planning "Ran" ("Chaos") for a decade after reading about real-life Sengoku warlord Mori Motonari and his three loyal sons and trying to imagine what would have happened instead if they had been bad. It was later that he learned of the parallels between what he was conceiving and Shakespeare's tragedy, "King Lear," and began fusing them into a story, elaborately storyboarding it with hundreds of paintings. Following the success of the critically acclaimed "Kagemusha," he was able to secure the financial backing of French producer Serge Silberman. (Yes, that castle, a set purpose-built on the slopes of Mount Aso, is burning down for real, as the distraught Hidetora staggers unhindered through the armies of his warring sons, an empty scabbard dragging behind him.) 

Emi Wada's sumptuous costumes won an Academy Award and are gorgeous. The period is appropriately the Sengoku Jidai (late 16th c.) and we meet our "Lear," Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai) hunting deer with his sons, Taro, Jiro and Saburo, in the mountains. 

 In this post hunt scene, Hidetora and his sons are relax in a curtained enclosure with refreshments. They are all in beautiful hitatare ensembles and wearing folded eboshi (caps), clothing that signifies high rank and a degree of formality. 

The old lord dozes off, then wakes with the determination to divide his domain. Taro is to become leader of the Ichimonji clan and receive his first castle, with the other sons to receive castles of their own and orders to support their elder brother, while Hidetora retains his title as great lord. Saburo, the middle son, protests that this is foolish and dangerous and when one of Hidetora's retainers, Tango, comes to his defense, Hidetora banishes Saburo and Tango. 

It all spirals down from here. Lear's great sin in that tragedy was foolishness. Hidetora's, we come to see, is cruelty, as his past ruthless acts as the head of a clan come back to bite him. 

Let's talk about Taro's wife, Lady Kaede (Mieko Harada), here with Taro (Akira Terao), both of them looking like subjects from period portraits in this shot. Kaede's family was murdered by Hidetora, their lands taken, and she was forcibly married off to his son. She sees Hidetora's abdication as a way to make him pay. So she will. (She also gets to wear some gorgeous stuff in the process!)

She has her uchikake (outermost robe) tied around her waist in a cool, summery style. You can see the tips of her front tied obi peeping out in the center, as well as some of the layers of robes as the collar, similar to this 16th c. portrait of Oichi no Kata. Taro is dressed in formal hitatare. 

This uwagi is spectacular, in a dan gawari pattern of alternating blocks of dark red and white decorated with pauwlonia blossoms. The layer beneath it appears to echo the pawlonia motif. 

Another dan-gawari uchikake, this one in heavy metallic brocade. 

When her husband is killed, Kaede (in mourning white) comes to his brother Jiro, first demurely presenting her husband's helmet, then unleashing her rage in a disturbing scene where she holds a blade to her brother in law's throat and seduce/rapes him. The aftermath as the camera follows her obi, trailing like a snake on the floor as she puts it back on, is one of those Kurosawa touches. The silvery black and white she wore beneath the white is almost like scales. 

Then designer Emi Wada pulls out all the stops with this number as an unrepentant Kaede faces her fate. That triangle pattern is symbolic of snake or dragon scales used in Noh - compare to the costume from the play "Dojoji" 

Previously, on "Shogun," we looked at Shin Nishida's women's cosutmes for the epic miniseries and I theorized about why some of them may be anachronistic. Part 1 on Women's Costumes is available at https://gurdymonkey.dreamwidth.org/964754.html

Our hero, John Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain), begins his journey as the pilot of a Dutch merchant ship, the "Erasmus." It's 1600, all the European powers are vying for profitable trade in the Far East and Blackthorne is convinced he can get his ship through to "The Japans," which the Portuguese have been visiting regularly for several decades. 

We may as well get the European costumes out of the way first. I showed a couple pictures to a Laurel friend who is a specialist in Elizabethan costuming in the SCA and she compared it to what folks were wearing in the late 70's at Renaissance faires in California. 

Blackthorne's kit consists of a reddish brown jerkin (or is a doublet that is missing sleeves?) with a double roll at each shoulder, linen shirt, breeches, stockings and short boots. His crew is a fairly scruffy assortment of shirts, jackets, jerkins and breeches. Shoes range from what appear to be slip-on turn shoes to laced brogans and even latchet shoes on Vinck. 

Vasco Rodrigues (John Rhys-Davies), the Portuguese pilot who is the best of frenemies if one has to have one, gets a couple of costume changes over the course of the series. Finger rings and a pendant or two, plus some metallic ribbon trims indicate he's made his fortune, though the fabrics are a bit odd. We first see him in this odd abstract "brocade" over brown.

This black ensemble has better breeches, but the "velvet" looks more like velour to me. And that hat is clearly a fedora someone slapped a couple feathers on. The brick red ensemble has a better overall look, complete with lacy bits on his collar.   

 The Jesuits get cassocks with a bit of a wing at the top of the shoulder. I don't know enough about clerical garb of the period and the depictions in the namban screens invariable show them wearing cloaks, but it looks all right. The captain of the Black Ship rates a ruff, but his crew is a mishmash that screams of a night raid on the wardrobe department. It's hard to say what Toho Studios and Shin Nishida had access to, but it is what it is and it manages to serve the story well enough. 

There, now THAT's out of the way, we can move on to where "Shogun" shines: the men's costumes. 

I cannot remember if this was in the novel, but someone realized at some point in the early stages of production that an American audience faced with a large, mostly Japanese cast were going to need some help identifying who was doing what to whom for how many cookies and why. Most of the action is not on a battlefield where waves of colored banners and sashimono tell you which side is which. Thus we have the two principle factions coded by color, not just visually, but in the voiceover narration by the late Orson Welles. Toranaga's people are the Browns and Ishido's are the Greys. It doesn't matter if you are the last ashigaru at the end of the line or General Hiromatsu, you appear on screen in the same color brown as everyone else. That even goes for the men at the top. Ishido (Nobuo Kaneko) is shown in silvery greys, while we first encounter Toranaga (Toshiro Mifune) in golden bronze silk. And when Blackthorne is given Japanese clothing to wear, it's in colors that leave no doubt who he is beholden to!

Left: Toranaga and Ishido confer. Right: Browns surrounded by Greys at Osaka Castle. 

Below left: Omi (Yuki Meguro). Right: Yabu (Frankie Sakai).

Toranaga, played by the inimitable Toshiro Mifune, is resplendent, whether holding court, or learning a hornpipe from Blackthorne. (This is my favorite scene ever so I'm linking to a Youtube clip.)

Once the audience can't NOT know who Toranaga is, he gets to branch out and wear Things That Are Not Brown, such as these hitatare in red (left) and olive green (right). 

Crisp and imposing in that gold jinbaori! Grandfatherly with a vassal's children after having cruelly tested the vassal's loyalty. (Be sure and check out the gold tiger painting on the wall too!

Onward to Blackthorne's transformation to Anjin-san and eventually to samurai. His overall look is grounded in earth tones as an indicator of his alignment with Toranaga. We mostly see him in kosode and hakama, often decorated with geometric designs or simple shapes such as waves, wheels, etc., all appropriate for a samurai of modest rank, while still setting him apart from the more liveried look of the Browns. 

Left to right: coming out of prison in yukata, riding out with Mariko in plain hakama and kikko patterned kosode, walking with Mariko in a kosode with water wheels and a basket-weave design on the hakama. 

The "wifi" symbol is actually a traditional wave motif. Right, detail of another nice brown and brown kosode. 

Dharma wheel kosode and cloud motif hakama. This striped kataginu kamishimo is his most formal look. 

A couple of bonus minor characters who are still beautifully and appropriately dressed. Left, an emissary from the Imperial court (with blackened teeth), right, a functionary who meets with Toranaga in a stunning dobuku decorated with crabs.

In summary, the costume design shines for the men's Japanese clothing, which admittedly didn't change a whole lot going into the early Edo period. The women's costumes contain a few anachronisms, which can be laid to Shin Nishida looking at slightly later styles and making artistic decisions in an effort to differentiate the social status of highly ranked women. 

The historical underpinnings for James Clavell's novel can be associated with the actual events surrounding William Adams and his relationship with Tokugawa Ieyasu. You can read about it on Wikipedia, or dig deeper with Giles Milton's excellent book, Samurai William. It looks like there is a more recent book by Hiromi Rogers called Anjin: The Life and Times of William Samuel Adams 1564-1620 that I may have to give a look. 

At one point in the miniseries, Father Alvito presents Blackthorne with a Japanese dictionary. The Jesuit mission in 16th century Japan has left us a trove of documents about the period: a dictionary, a grammar, manuals describing the customs of the Japanese - and I probably need to do a deep dive on the Jesuits in Japan one of these days. 

Part 1 of this costume deep dive began with Kiku. I made the mistake of watching the DVD featurette about "Geisha" and while the scholarly talking heads don't say anything specifically wrong, it's edited in such a way that the uninformed viewer can only believe that Kiku was a geisha. The first geisha ("art persons") were male entertainers arising in the 18th century, with women later taking that role. In 1600 there were courtesans and prostitutes. Kiku's services are engaged as a gift to Blackthorne, and she is described as being "owned" by whoever holds her contract. The unpleasant reality is that girls would be sold to brothels, often because their own families couldn't afford to support them. It was possible to work off one's indenture, but many girls were unable to escape the system and stayed in the pleasure quarters, frequently succumbing to disease or deaths associated with abortions. Kiku has a "happy" ending when Toranaga makes a gift of her contract to Blackthorne to do as he likes with - and he turns around and gives the contract to her lover, Omi. 

Suggested reading: 

Clavell, James. The Making of James Clavell's Shogun (Delta Books/Dell Publishing, 1980). Out of print, but available used, this large paperback includes production stills, costume drawings and other information of interest to fans. 

Dalby, Liza. Geisha (Vintage/Ebury/Random House, 2007). Dalby's anthropological fieldwork in geisha communities gained her an invitation to study how to become a geisha and provides an interesting view from the inside. 

Frois, Luis. The First European Description of Japan, 1585: A Critical English Language Edition Of Striking Contrasts In The Customs Of Europe And Japan (Routledge, 2014). This account by a Jesuit priest compares the ways of the Japanese with the ways of Europeans. Biases towards Buddhist priests in particular abound, however, it remains an interesting look at late 16th century Japanese life. Rental for Kindle is your most affordable option. 

Milton, Giles. Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan (Penguin Books, 2003). A readable study on the life and times of William Adams, available in paperback. 

Rogers, Hiromi. Anjin: The Life and Times of William Samuel Adams 1564-1620 (Renaissance Books, 2018). I haven't read it but Rogers writes about the Japanese perspective on Adams, so I just ordered a copy this morning. 

I can't figure out how to share this to the Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page (I suspect Ii-dono forgot to give me the appropriate permissions), so it's getting put here. 

The February 2021 of "Age of Samurai: Battle For Japan" on Netflix was sadly, NOT a feast for the eyes of any historical costume nerd. The Canadian production lost its director and had its budget nuked. From orbit, with extreme prejudice. At best it is a confusing jumble of facts spewn by experts whose expertise is undercut by editors who want to make sure you see all the Bright Red Blood and pretty animated maps they did spend their money on. The Covid-19 pandemic didn't help and probably resulted in a lot of shortcutting. Everything is shot at the same locations with a little set re-dressing and it looks like they bought up a bunch of stock armor, vintage kimono and threw it in a pile and said, "Ready, set, go!" At best, we get samurai in solid colored hakama and kimono, at worst, we get Toyotomi Hideyoshi flapping around in home decor fabric so badly sewn you know it was whacked together on an impossible deadline, badly ironed, and flung onto an actor.

And Tokugawa Ieyasu is in a version of another extant garment.   

Nobunaga's informal ensemble is based on a well known portrait.  

Netflix's samurai and daimyo all look underdressed. "Kagemusha's" peasants get decorated clothing and retainers wear livery

Feudal Japan was hierarchical. Clothes denote not only who one is but how much power they wield, how much respect they demand, how much deference they give to their superiors, and so forth. If you go back to the head of this entry to the shot of Shingen, his brother and his peasant double all wearing identical outfits, the body language tells you who is who. 

In feudal Japan you also dress for what you're doing, for what the occasion demands, whether your overlord is holding court or you're making battle plans. 

We even get glimpses of what the women of Shingen's circle would wear. Multilple layers and the woman at right has worn her uwagi koshimaki fashion. And let's enjoy that bright yellow dobuku the kagemusha wears here as he tries to pass with women who knew Shingen intimately: even the daimyo wears flowers. 

In fact his outfit is so scrumptious, let's get a better look as he feigns drunkeness to deceive his women. 

I would happily wear any uwagi in the shot below. Look at everyone in this shot. Look at the peasants at the back. 

The V&A even has one of the costumes in their collection. Go here to see. 

Film costumes are not documentation for SCA purposes, but these are so well done.  Hagakusawa had the budget and the access to the right textiles, properly embellished and used, he copied museum pieces for several costumes. Everyone, including people in the background, looks as they should. 

Here's Nobunaga flaunting a European cape. Spare a glance for the guy walking at his stirrup:neat, crisp, decorated textiles. 

Cute grandson is cute - and dressed as his station befits. 

Less formal women's clothing. 

This is a terrific movie for a lot of reasons: it works as the historical fiction that it is and tells a tale of a man trapped by circumstance into pretending he is someone else. The battles are epic and heart rending. Nakadai is at the height of his powers in not one but two roles. Truly, "Kagemusha" is a feast for the eyes - and I can't wait to sit down and watch it again.