Nagoya Bushimeshi Busho-tai Bento Launched!

Past Tuesday, during an event dedicated to the promotion of Aichi tourism, a new ekiben was introduced, available at Nagoya Station and dedicated to two main "contents" of Nagoya: samurai and food!
Picture from this article.

The Nagoya Bushimeshi Busho-tai Bento (なごや武士めし 武将隊弁当) includes some typical flavours of the Azuchi-Momoyama period (throughly researched thanks to the "Bushi-meshi" investigations of historians and gourmet) and the classic Nagoya-meshi awesomeness.
Main feature of the bento are the grilled miso onigiri, plus misokatsu, kishimen, eel and other delicacies.
The package includes a "Sengoku MAP" about the touristical spots of the ancient provinces of Owari and Mikawa featuring the Nagoya Busho-tai.

The bento costs 1200 yen, it can be found at GRAND KIOSK of Nagoya Station and it's sold starting December 27.
It's not clear if it's a limited edition item, but the distribution should be granted at least for the whole 2018 year!

Nobunaga 450 Digest ( 六 )

And here we are-- The closing event of the celebrations for the 450th Anniversary of Gifu city was on December 22, meaning that the party is over...Or maybe not.
Today's "cover" features a rare picture of the lanterns used during the Koyomi no Yobune and featuring the anniversary that we followed during this year! The picture comes from the Twitter account of one of the artists who worked on it.

The JR Azuchi Station gets a renewal in Nobunaga style!

On November 19 the JR Azuchi Station finally completed its renewal works.
The event was celebrated by the PR groups of Azuchi, including the freshly enstablished Nobunaga-tai, and the local authorities with a opening ceremony.


Pictures coming from this and this Twitter accounts.
The station now features a touristic office on the first floor, plus escalators, elevators and toilets. Still no coin lockers, though!
Its most defining feature is the octagonal tower at the North Exit, inspired by the architecture of the Nobunaga no Yakata museum, where it's possible to see a reconstruction of the Azuchi Castle's tenshu.

Behold the "Shinchou Meikan"!

It's almost Comiket time and some previews are already popping out here and there.

Irene (thank youuuu!) showed me this awesome book, "Shinchou Meikan" (信長名鑑) by Chihatan (ちはたん) circle!
It's an encyclopedia of ALL the depictions of Nobunaga in fiction, featuring anime, manga, mascottes, light novels and videogames!
The author researched 388 Nobu-versions in this book, with references and details on sources and interpretations... Far from "scholar stuff", but quite the task nevertheless!

I can't find a webpage of the author but their Twitter account, where you can check some pictures of the contents, too.
If you manage to visit Comiket on December 31, note the booth of Chihatan: 東ホ09b!

A Nobunaga statue in Nagoya!

Gifu has its very own Nobunaga statue, Azuchi too, even Kiyosu and Shobata sport one.
But what about Nagoya? Thanks to the report of Samurai History & Culture Japan we got to know that during the recent Nobunaga Kouro event, a bronze statue dedicated to Nobunaga with the features of Nobunaga from "Ikusa no Ko" manga was unveiled in the precints of Nagoya castle!

Nobunaga 450 Digest (五)

Here we are for a "middle update" about the Nobu-related events of the 450th Anniversary of Gifu City!
Still a bit of Autumn before jumping into Winter, let's take a look to the events that we announced last time and the upcoming stuff.
Today's cover is related to the Nobunaga "Yume" Rakuichi market-event! It features the "jumbo paella" and Gifu PR Yukko Yanagase... But let's go in order!

News from Nagoya!

Again, Nagoya does its best to keep us busy during winter.

The first appointment is this year edition of Nobunaga Kouro, another event that turned into a regular celebration dedicated to the Battle of Okehazama.
This year the event is scheduled from December 2, and the location is the Nagoya castle precints. It even sports a nice website in English, so enjoy!

Next, not strictly Nobu-related but still worth mentioning, don't forget about the Nagoya-jo Winter Festival, scheduled for December 23 to January 14.
As the main scheduled event is the "Countdown Live" to celebrate the new year, I suggest you to keep an eye to the temporary Touken Ranbu-themed cafe scheduled to open from January 5 to 14... It's still a bit early to check it, but you can find the official page of the event here.

Three Nobunaga in Eight Years!

This month the Nagoya Omotenashi Busho-tai celebrated 8 years of activity.
The PR group was formed on November 3, 2009 to celebrate the 400 years since the foundation of Nagoya City.
"8" is a lucky number in Japanese tradition, as its kanji, "八", moves upwards and is open at the bottom, signifying a never-ending growth.
For this reason the maruhachi (The kanji for eight with a circle around) is also the official symbol of Nagoya city, adopted on March 1907: it was originally used by the Tokugawa clan of Owari as its family seal.

During the eight years of glamorours activity and promotion, though, three Nobunagas changed on the stage of Nagoya castle.

Nobunaga events in Fujinomiya

Autumn is always a rich period for matsuri and events dedicated to Nobunaga-- After Nagoya, here are the celebrations dedicated to Nobunaga's tour of Fujinomiya after the defeat of the Takeda Clan.

The first event that I'd like to share is the 27th Oda Nobunaga Summit scheduled for November 11, followed by the Nobunaga Kouyo Matsuri on November 12.
It's a rich excuse to know more about Nobunaga, try delicious food and check out the kouyo, the "autumn colours" featured by the red foliage of the maples in the area.

Nagoya-jo Autumn Festival

The birthday of Gifu sure is distracting, since I noticed these seasonal events only now, fortunately still on time to remind you about the Autumn Edition of the Nagoya-jo Festival happening right now in Nagoya until November 23!
The idea is celebrating the Nagoya Castle and its surrounding four times a year, so to provide extra visibility to this touristic attraction.
The main events feature local products degustations, idol concerts, sport events, seasonal traditions and the like. You can check the schedule for the whole thing here.

Kaiju vs Demon Lord of the Sixth Heaven

Too bad that this summer we were too busy melting due the extra heat, otherwise we would have checked that special event during the Godzilla Exhibition in Nagoya featuring Nobunaga!
The pretext was the exhibition Godzilla at the Museum, hosted at the Nagoya City Museum from July 15 to September 3.
Nobunaga from the Nagoya Busho-tai had the chance to meet fans and pose with them for extra fun pictures on August 18. Isn't our favourite warlord quite "territorial"?!

In case you long for more pictures, here you can find a "report" on the Busho-tai's blog, and here you can find more high resolution pictures of Nobu's performance, from which the picture that we used here on this post comes from.

Nobunaga 450 Digest ( 四 )

Here we are with our report about the current celebrations for the 450th Anniversary of Gifu city, that are, as you know, completely Nobu-related.
This season we use Hiroshi Fujioka striking a pose during the parade of the Gifu Nobunaga Matsuri as the "cover" of our fourth report for this year!

Nobunaga (w)as a Woman: "Onna Nobunaga"

I'll continue with my intrusions in the world of stage plays, focusing on the works related to Nobunaga.

This time we take a look at the pamphlet of "Onna Nobunaga", the stage version of a popular novel by Kenichi Sato, known because of it tanpatsu version directed by Hideki Takeuchi, even if this stage play is actually older than the TV adaptation.

The pamphlet came with a nice chirashi/mini-poster with a nice picture of the protagonists of this strange love story, pretty-girl-of-many-talents Meisa Kuroki as Nobunaga, and pop idol Akinori Nakagawa as Mitsuhide.

Nobunaga 450 Digest (三)

Better late than never, finally here I am to take a look at what's happening there in Gifu city for the celebrations of the 450th anniversary of the city's enstablishment!
This time as the "cover" of this post I picked the stunning real life size statue of Nobunaga inspired by the taiga drama of 1973 that decorates the entrance to the Nobunaga Gallery-- But let's go in order!

Oda Nobunaga Tour 2017

It took me almost a month, but I'm finally done with the reports of my last trip to Japan :)

The last days were dedicated to my third Nobunaga Tour, and finally I posted the articles online on my personal website :)

• Kiyosu, Komaki, Gifu;
• Arimatsu vs Toyoake (Okehazama Battlefield pt.II), Konan;
• Azuchi Nobunaga Matsuri;

Enjoy!

^{PS: Also, sorry for the technical troubles with the previous posts but Photobucket decided to become a bitch T_T I'm in the process of migrating all the pictures over here, but it'll take a while... Meanwhile expect more updates in the next days, I'm far behind with my schedule ^_^; !}

Castle Sweet Castle, or when your favourite stronghold turns into a moe girl...

Irene gave me another hint for another post about our beloved pop subculture.
Today we're going to explore the world of browser games again, but this time rather than swords we'll focus on something more satisfying: castles.
Exactly, the Japanese entertainment had the brillant idea of turning popular castles (and they are not just Japanese castles) into cute pretty girls devoted to the well-being of their tono.

Weaving a Story

So, I'm in the process of moving rooms, so I'm taking my time to check out all the stuff that keeps coming out of my armoir (mostly 'cause I'm throwing away the most of it 😀 )... As I'm a compulsive t-shirts buyer, I couldn't help paying a moment to the souvenir t-shirts bought during my trips to Japan and dedicated to Nobunaga.
I call them "the Tenka Fubu Bunch", as all of them feature the famous motto, no matter where I bought them XD
Obviously they all come with a story to tell, and a fond memory of my travels...

Nobunaga 450 Digest (二)

Here we are again, doing our best to keep track of the celebrations for the 450th Anniversary of Gifu city :)
This time we picked a picture of a fully Nobu-decorated Gifu Castle as a "cover" of this post because, if just for the "Sengoku Musou" invasion, it's pretty much the protagonist of current events... But let's go in order, for a complete overview of just past and future Spring events in Gifu--!

Nobunaga meets Takarazuka: "NOBUNAGA - Tenka no Yume"

Recently I started to collect Japanese pamphlets about my favourite anime movies... Since I found some for cheap, I also presented myself some dedicated to various stage plays featuring Nobunaga.
This is my first arrival, the pamphlet of "NOBUNAGA - Tenka no Yume", the recent show featuring the Moon Troupe of Takarazuka:
This refers to the show of Tokyo at the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre.
Let's leaf through it together!

What Would Nobunaga Do?

The idea for this post came from fellow Nobu-enthusiast Davide who contacted me asking for an illustration about Nobunaga coming back to our age and dealing with current events.
What would be his reaction, what would he do to "fix" things..?
This isn't a new question, as we can see from the thousand time-travelling anime that feature Nobunaga in the present in various forms and situations. There's an anime where Nobunaga was revived in the body of a cute teenager girl, for example, or a manga where he is the current Prime Minister of Japan.
Even Les on his book about Okehazama wonders about Nobunaga's strategy against international terrorism that he feels so similar to Ikko Ikki dudes, and I can see the standard Japanese getting nostalgic about Sengoku Era and its genuine lifestyle, even if it meant dying young and in miserable conditions, maybe by the hands of their own kin.

So, you know, while drawing, I wondered. And going past the stereotypes of the ruthless conqueror and the demonic warlord, I seriously asked myself: "What would Nobunaga do?"
And I found my very own answer: he would enjoy himself.

Nobunaga 450 Digest (一)

So, let's start the new year with a first report on Gifu 450th Anniversary!
^{Image coming from Nobunaga450 official website. The banners that celebrate the 450th Anniversary of the city foundation were placed by the exit of JR Gifu Station during the Gifu Nobunaga Matsuri of 2016.}As I said, since the celebrations are going to be strongly Nobunaga-related, I decided to offer some coverage of the various events happening around Gifu, digging around websites, blogs and other media as I find them quite relevant to our interest-- Since we can't be there all year around, at least we can use some informations, right?!

So, let's start with some recollection of past events, and a list of the upcoming events scheduled for January and February.