Samurai drama

The Bathhouse and the Barbershop — Community Space in Edo Drama

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledA specific type of scene recurs in jidaigeki so often that it has become invisible through fami...
Samurai drama

Old Age in Period Drama — The Elder as Protagonist

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledConsider the problem that the elderly protagonist poses for an action genre. The jidaigeki is, ...
Samurai drama

The Sword Itself — Metallurgy, Mythology and Japan’s Most Sacred Object

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledEvery jidaigeki conversation about swords gets the sword wrong in the same specific way: it tre...
Samurai drama

Haiku and Poetry in Jidaigeki — The Aesthetic Code Beneath the Action

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledHijikata Toshizō, vice-commander of the Shinsengumi, composed haiku under the pen name Hōgyoku....
Samurai drama

The Ghost in Period Drama — Kaidan, Supernatural Justice and the Unquiet Dead

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledThe ghost arrives in the jidaigeki differently from the ghost in the Western horror tradition. ...