Musically Locating the Iconoclastic Anime Samurai

The iconic figure of the samurai is central to conceptualized Japanese identity. The essentialized "Japaneseness" of the samurai has infiltrated many areas of global popular culture from cartoons and novels, to katana-themed umbrellas, to self-help and business psychology, becoming ubiquitous and universally recognizable. Popular culture portrays samurai in a stereotypical fashion, usually stoic, wearing dark, traditional clothing, hakama and gi, his hair is in a topknot or tail, he wields or carries his sword, or two, and he is always a man. Part of the international appeal is the belief that the samurai unilaterally followed a special code of behavior called Bushido, the way of the warrior.¹ As with most stereotypes, however, this image of the samurai is flawed and cartoonish. Anthropologist Ian Condry notes:

It is often at this level of generality that samurai are seen as representing Japan, or at least Japanese manhood, as a symbol of loyalty, perseverance and skill. But just as the equation of samurai with Japan is overly simplistic, so too is the idea that a samurai equals a character too simplistic for understanding what defines a character.²

While this popular image has international currency, within Japanese society it is generally recognized to be a gross simplification of a diverse and individualistic array of historical figures.

Recognition of this inherent diversity started to affect the popular image of the samurai in the late 1980s as Japan began a period of economic recession. By the mid-1990s, after Japan's famous socioeconomic prosperity bubble burst, Japan began governmental changes toward social, globally sensitive reform; Japan was to become a gender-equal country by 2020.³ The effects of the recession on urban poor in Tokyo was such that it created a strong affinity and interest among its youth for globalized media of resistance, such as hip-hop. Scholars have argued that the use of blackface-style makeup and even some crossover into Ganguro subculture resulted at least partially from resultant racial negotiations.⁴ At the same time, the world, especially Hollywood, became more interested in Japan. From American Samurai (1992) and Ghost Dog (1999), to Tom Cruise's Last Samurai (2003) and Uma Thurman's Kill Bill movies (2003–4) the new image of the samurai was becoming increasingly fusion and Other.⁵

For the purposes of this study, however, it is not so much a question of appearance but rather aurality: what do samurai sound like? What soundscape surrounded them historically and does that still impact their reception in modern popular media? Samurai have been depicted for over seven hundred years, first through noh theater and later through kabuki theater. While these performative traditions inhabited different sociocultural contexts, both used a core instrumental ensemble called the hayashi, consisting of bamboo flute and three percussionists.⁶ By the 1500s, kabuki developed as a more popular entertainment, adding shamisen (a long-necked, plucked lute) to the hayashi. Specific instruments and combinations of instruments semiotically indicate to kabuki audiences everything from atmospheric settings like weather or physical space considerations, to more subtle emotional states.⁷ Musical depiction of samurai in these plays emphasized percussion, like the hyoshigi, wooden clappers that call the audience's attention, the clappa—used to create sounds of action or running, and even taiko drums, like Odaiko and shimedaiko, which have their own martial associations.

Beyond the aurality of the theater, samurai have lesser-known historical connections to various musical traditions. The shakuhachi, an end-blown, bamboo flute, became associated with ronin samurai of the komuso (mendicant Zen priests) of the Fuke sect. They wore deep straw hats that covered their faces and wandered freely playing the shakuhachi as a means of attaining enlightenment and alms. The Meiji government disbanded them and forbade the playing of solo shakuhachi for a time. Kinko-ryu is another shakuhachi style created by a retired samurai that continued throughout the Meiji Era.⁸ While some historical samurai played shakuhachi, the music of this instrument is usually heard in anime as intradiegetic, atmospheric sound that indexes Asia and more specifically Japan.

Finally, short song forms such as tanka were used by samurai...