Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

This post concerns Japanese history more than UY specifically, but it's still closely related...

So, I'm watching the Last Samurai, and keeping my little Skeptic Glasses on the entire time. I mean, sure, it may be accurate in some regards, but it's still a Hollywood-powered vessel for Tom Cruise to look cool in, so it would be silly to take it as history.

One of the features mentioned that, prior to this crazy Meiji era, foreigners were so unwelcome in Japan that they were simply killed on sight. Chop-chop, that's it, no tourism for you.

So... is this true? Past mentions in UY have implied that the foreigners have survived at least long enough to pawn off some firearms and a disease or two. They're certainly in no kind of prominent place, but they are there in some sense or another. Myself, I have more faith in big boss Sakai than I do Tom Cruise when it comes to history, so I'm more inclined to take UY's approach more seriously than some blurb on a special feature on a silly movie DVD.

Any other insights? Was Japan so hostile to foreigners that UY's mentions of their influence are in fact indulgences?

The Last Samurai takes place much later than Usagi's time. By that time, Commadore Perry had already opened up Japan (by gunpoint) with the US.

In Usagi's time, foreigners were still kept apart from typical Japanese society, relegated to sections of port cities such as Nagasaki.

The next issue of UY deals with a foreign artifact that falls into Usagi's possession and the lengths to which the authorities go to retrieve it. Needless to say, whenever Usagi come into contact with the "gifts" from foreign traders--the coughing sickness, gun powder--it doesn't go well. There is also a brief storynotes about the foreigners in Usagi's time.

Interesante...this actually brings up something I always wanted to ask: with Usagi traveling so much on foot, is there a chance he might go overseas or to such far-away places as India or the Phillipines? Probably too much of a "culture shock," but even so...

I've lost track of the Gregorian calendrical year Usagi's currently living in, but it's during the reign of the first or second Tokugawa shogun, right? Lemme just check a couple of things....

1542- Lost Portuguese traders fetch up in Japan, introducing firearms and militant monotheism. As it's in the middle of the "Age of Battles", there's no real strong central government response.
1600- Battle of Sekigahara sets up the Tokugawa clan as effective military rulers of Japan. Also, a Dutch/English expedition arrives in Japan, offering an alternative outlet for trade with Europe.
1603- Tokugawa Ieyasu gets the Shogun hat, so now it's official. Emperor gets back to weeding the royal garden and writing haiku.
1605- Hat passed onto son Hidetada, to establish the post of shogun as hereditary.
1615- Last remaining rival clan, Toyotomi, is put down once and for all.
1623- T. Iemitsu gets handed the hat.
1633-1639- Iemitsu gets cranky about all the foreign influences (mainly Portugese/Catholic, but also English/Protestant, and to a much lesser degree Dutch/Protestant-but-mainly-after-cash) interfering with his telling the daimyo how high to jump, and in a series of proclaimations kicks out everyone except a small Dutch trading factory on an island off Nagasaki (which included some Chinese traders), and makes it illegal for Japanese people to interact with foreigners apart from the inhabitants of said island (who are mainly eta, so who cares).
1854- US ships sail into Japan, and the HUGE technological disparity makes it impossible to enforce the anti-foreigner injunctions.
1868- The 15th Tokugawa shogun, Yoshinobu, resigns.
1870's- Tom Cruise gets kicked around some (but not enough...).
1890's- Japan beats up on Russia, without assistance from Tom Cruise. That's 350 years of technological development sorted out in under 45 years, gang....

So, after 1639, "kill 'em if you find 'em" was pretty much the whole of foreign policy in Japan until the US squadron appears. Prior to that, I know the Dutch were hiring Japanese sailors and mercenaries (sometimes ronin, sometimes retainers a lord would contract out as a way of getting some cash) as they and the English began to fight for dominance in Asian trade. SO, as long as Usagi is doin' his thing sometime between 1610 and 1634 or so, there's nothing preventing him from a foreign excursion... except a sensible disinclination to face tai fun on a dinky, leaky vessel made by weirdos from afar, and his apparent lack of interest in killing folks just to make a buck.

[EDITED MATERIAL] After re-reading the initial posting-- prior to Shogun #3's crackdown, there was a wide range of response to foreigners. If you were getting rich off 'em though trade, they were swell. Some samurai adopted the stupid "head-on-a-plate" collars that were popular in Europe. Armour styles changed somewhat, both for fashion and thanks to the appearance of guns. Others (not getting rich, or just conservative) worked to promote the notion of gaijin as smelly, hairy, rude, illiterate jerks... which was not entirely untrue; even before 1633, Europeans didn't travel too freely, since almost every time they left their own quarters, they'd cause a breach of the peace (most never learned to speak nihongo, and fewer troubled to learn local customs; your 16th century European in Asia was a pretty arrogant item, and YOU wouldn't want to share a restuarant with them). BUT, until #3 booted them out, the Shogunate liked them, so if an individual lord didn't, he'd probably be quiet about it.

I do take quite a few liberties with history, but right now the comics take place in the fall of 1605. Ieyasu has recently stepped down as shogun.

Wow... pretty detailed answer. Thanks to you both.

Stan, Why no mention in UY of the Shogun stepping down?

Todd Shogun wrote:Stan, Why no mention in UY of the Shogun stepping down?

It was touched upon in Grasscutter. Noriyuki and Tomoe and their entourage were on their way to Edo to celebrate the new Shogun when they were betrayed by Councilor Arimura.

Got it. My bad