NOBUNAGA BIRTHDAY PROJECT ④ The Symbols of Nobunaga

Inspired by the online event of Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai dedicated to the birthday of Nobunaga past year, I decided to join the celebrations this year too, providing a new post dedicated to Nobu every week, until June 23 😄 Inspired by the book Shinchou Meikan, I took one of its article as the foundation for a few personal considerations concerning the "famous symbols" that make us think immediately of Nobunaga. Well, besides killing a cuckoo and pounding the mochi, of course 😁

"Shincho Meikan" Review! And a few additions∼

I finally got my copy of the Shincho Meikan, the complete archive of Nobunaga's depictions from 1583 to-- yesterday! I'm still in the middle of browsing it, but I already checked its contents and mini-columns... There's lots of blissful suggestions to peruse for my Nobunaga Birthday Project ♥

NOBUNAGA BIRTHDAY PROJECT ③ Let's Pound the Tenka Mochi!

Inspired by the online event of Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai dedicated to the birthday of Nobunaga past year, I decided to join the celebrations this year too, providing a new post dedicated to Nobu every week, until June 23 😄 Following the trail of thoughts from past week, today we're talking about this "irreverent" ukiyo-e by Utagawa Yoshitora!

NOBUNAGA BIRTHDAY PROJECT ② Nobunaga and the Cuckoo

Inspired by the online event of Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai dedicated to the birthday of Nobunaga past year, I decided to join the celebrations this year too, providing a new post dedicated to Nobu every week, until June 23 😄For today's contribution I kept fiddling around with the King of Zipangu guidebook, this time focusing on the "Cuckoo Poem" that opens the previously analyzed article, that so effectively describes the Three Unifiers of Japan.
Browsing the web about it, I decided to share what I found about it online.

Cute! Nobunaga Pancake∼!

So, the Twitter account of the Gifu Castle Moriagetai attracted my interest with the exclusive pancakes served at CLOVER COFEE, a shop inside the Nagarakawa Ukai Museum. The pancakes are decorated with the crests of the samurai clans of Gifu and Nobunaga's is served with ice-cream and a berries sauce.

NOBUNAGA BIRTHDAY PROJECT ① Nobunaga's Reputation

Inspired by the online event of Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai dedicated to the birthday of Nobunaga past year, I decided to offer my own celebration this year, providing a new post dedicated to Nobu every week, starting today May 12 to June 23 😄 For this first post, I retrieved an interesting article from the guidebook of the taiga drama King of Zipangu dedicated to what people said about Nobunaga, and how these impressions from other people contributed to his modern "reputation".
I translated roughly the part about the "contemporaries of Nobunaga" and offered a commentary∼

Another 1/6 Nobunaga Figure∼

Keep 'em coming!! This new Nobunaga figure is produced by 101TOYS and is scheduled for "Q3 2022". It's part of the series "New Beginning", dedicated to various protagonists of the Sengoku Era. This figure takes the drama King of Zipangu as a reference for the armour.

Nobunaga's new outfit∼

Kento Iwasaki shared pictures of a new Nobunaga's outfit on the Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai blog:

"The Man who dreamed of the World" stage-play by Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai.

So, past week the guys of the Nagoya Omotenashi Bushotai managed to set up a stage-play dedicated to the inspiring figure of Nobunaga; the complete title sounds like The Man Who Dreamed of the World ～The Two Rebellions of the Supreme King～ (天下を夢見た男～覇王双乱～, Tenka wo Yumemita Otoko ～Haō Sōran～). The scriptwriter of the stage-play was Nobuhiro Mori and the director was Shin'ya Sato.
The event included the guest starring of seiyuu Yudai Noda as Akechi Mitsuhide and talent Miki Yakata as the "mysterious girl".
The play was staged on March 26th and 27th at Nagoya City Performing Arts Center venue.

Nobunaga as Mona Lisa: the Curse of the Icon

--Have you heard of the Prado's Mona Lisa? Basically, that's a copy of the painting in Louvre, attributed to one of Leonardo's students, probably Andrea Salai.
The painting is interesting, because, after a recent restauration, it showed many similarities to the "original", making people realize that the French Mona Lisa looked like that because the original colours were somehow altered by the centuries.

The idea of restoring Mona Lisa was always somehow ostracized by the curators, though: first, because cleaning up the varnish stratifications could damage the work, then because the treatment would alter the original colors anyway. Others comments, though, made people think that Mona Lisa would never be restored because now her "dirty look" is what makes her "an icon", and the reason why visitors love it and "recognize" it.