Monday 28 May 2018

Nobunaga's Moving Castle

I'm following the anime Basilisk: Ouka Ninpouchou; it's a ninja story set in the early Edo period, the obvious sequel of Basilisk: Kouga Ninpouchou.

This new chapter in the misadventures of Iga and Kouga ninja focuses on an attempt to revive Nobunaga by a group of Tokugawa opponents, the Joujinshuu. As a "cradle" to host the rebirth of Nobunaga, they set up this disturbing moving castle heading for Edo, dubbed the Murakumo, which is, by far, a perfect copy of Azuchi castle!

Friday 18 May 2018

"Kiyosu-jo Nobunaga Onikoroshi" commercial...

It's dated 2011 but I stumbled on it in the past days during a research for a movie...
It's a commercial for the "packed sake" released by Kiyosuzakura Brewery, Kiyosu-jo Nobunaga Onikoroshi-- With such a name obviously it caught my interest!
Besides the obvious relation of Nobunaga to Kiyosu city, that explain the name, apparently ""onikoroshi" generally means such strong & delicious sake that beat an ogre".

Even if I found a not-so-enthusiastic review, I'm definitely willing to try this once I'll be in Japan again-- If just to take a picture of a landscape with Onikoroshi--!

Thursday 10 May 2018

Honnouji Hotel (2017)

I was quite moved to find the subtitled version of this movie, so I proceed with its review!
Aaah, it's been a while since I last watched a Nobu-movie..!
Honnouji Hotel is a movie released last year which main focus was pimping Kyoto's tourism.
To do that they intertwined the choices in life of a dull girl with no dreams, Mayuko Kuramoto (Haruka Hayase), with one of the most important turning point of Japanese history, the Honnouji Incident.

Sunday 6 May 2018

The Nobunaga of Kiyoshi Kimata

So, recently I resumed my interest for Japanese children books, and I started to collect some old illustrated books dedicated to Nobunaga.

Among my first purchases was the 42nd volume of Hinotori Denki Bunko (火の鳥伝記文庫) series by Kodansha dated 1983, which is dedicated to Nobunaga.

The text, a novelization of Nobunaga's life, is composed by Shunpei Suzuki, while Kiyoshi Kimata took care of the illustrations inside the booklet.
A master of inking, his style is quite charming and I fell completely in love with his simple, elegant artworks.
I'm sharing some of them in this post, then!