Samurai drama

Inns, Roads and Journeys — The Tōkaidō as Narrative Engine

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledThe road in jidaigeki is not geography. It is a specific narrative technology: a device whose s...
Samurai drama

The Child in Jidaigeki — Youth, Inheritance and Sacrifice

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledChildren in jidaigeki are rarely simply children. They are, almost invariably, something else s...
Samurai drama

Weather and Season in Jidaigeki — Nature as Dramaturgy

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledRain in jidaigeki is not weather. It is argument. The specific rain that falls on the final con...
Samurai drama

The Merchant in the Samurai’s World — Commerce, Class and Contempt

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledThe most structurally revealing villain in jidaigeki is not the corrupt magistrate or the treac...
Samurai drama

Jidaigeki and Buddhism — Temple, Monk and the Moral Landscape

By Yoshi | Japan UnveiledThe Buddhist temple in jidaigeki occupies a specific narrative position that any attentive view...