The Dagger of Kamui
Encyclopedia
is a Japan
ese novel series by Tetsu Yano
released by Kadokawa Shoten
from 1984 to 1985.
The series was adapted in 1985 into an anime
film directed by Rintaro
and animated by Madhouse
and Toei Animation
. The screenplay was adapted by Mori Masaki, and character designs were created by Moribi Murano, who also illustrated the novel series. Takuo Noda directed the animation, and the music was composed by Ryūdō Uzaki and Eitetsu Hayashi. Kamui was released on VHS
and DVD
in North America
by AnimEigo
.
descent, was a foundling
raised by a kindly innkeeper and her daughter in the village of Sai on the Shimokita Peninsula
during the last years of the Tokugawa Shogunate
, several years before the start of Japan's Meiji Restoration
.
One evening, a lone shinobi
, appears out of the darkness and kills Jiro's adoptive mother and sister while the boy was away. When he returns home, he finds their dead bodies, a strange dagger and a whole host of angry villagers who blame him for killing his family. Rather than stay in the village and face a brutal crucifixion
for the grave crime of parricide
, Jiro escapes into the night with the dagger and meets with a buddhist
monk
called Tenkai
who works for the Shogunate as an Oniwaban (Secret Police). Tenkai takes the boy face-to-face with the man who supposedly killed his family and gets him to deliver the killing blow. Afterwards, his entire village is set ablaze and the villagers slaughtered to cover up the incident. Tenkai then takes Jiro in at his temple on the island of Ezo, and has his subordinates Shingo and Sanpei train him in the ways of Ninja so that one day, he may learn of his father. Tenkai quickly dispatches Shingo to follow Jiro and make sure he stays to the same path as Tarouza, Jiro's late father.
As Jiro travels in search of answers to the mystery of his family line, he comes across a group of Japanese men beating up an old Ainu man. The old man's son, Uraka, implores Jiro's help and he quickly dispatches the punks. The old man dies of his injuries, and Jiro and Uraka escape to Uraka's home village of Shinopirika-Kotan, unaware the old man's assailants are actually agents of Tenkai. At Kotan, the village elder recognizes Jiro's dagger as the Dagger of Kamui. He states that it was originally owned by the previous village chieftain, and as given as a gift to a Japanese ninja who married the chieftain's daughter, Oyaruru. The Elder then tells Jiro that one day Oyaruru returned to Kotan alone, and eventually left the village to live upriver by herself.
Jiro seeks out Oyaruru, and learns she is his biological mother, and of the misfortune Tenkai had wrought on her family. Tenkai dispatched Tarouza to the mountain Kamui Nupuri to find a great treasure large enough to keep the Shogunate in power. Tarouza, however, broke all contact with Tenkai, and married Oyaruru. When Tenkai and his men caught up with them, he slashed the face of the infant Jiro, and sent him floating downriver in the canoe his parents would have used to escape. On the cliff above, Tarouza loses an eye to a primitive grenade, and his sword arm to Hanzou. He falls over the cliff, seemingly to his death. Jiro comes to the horrifying realization that Tenkai had tricked him; the man he stabbed was his father. During their evening meal, without ever noticing, both Jiro and Oyaruru take in a paralysis potion through the food and Oyaruru is killed with the Dagger of Kamui, implicating Jiro in her murder. Imprisoned according to village law, Uraka returns to help Jiro, who finally understands that Tenkai has been manipulating him and the time for revenge is at hand.
Revelation after revelation of Jiro's heritage and family is revealed until the final climax: A bloody showdown between Tenkai and Jiro.
The movie is very accurate in its depictions of pre-Meiji Japan
, Russia
, and the United States
, and deals directly with historical events such as the Boshin War
, and historical figures such as Saigō Takamori
, Andō Shōzan, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa, Geronimo
, and Mark Twain
.
The Haruki bunkoban release is as follows:
vocals.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese novel series by Tetsu Yano
Tetsu Yano
Tetsu Yano was a Japanese science fiction translator and writer. He began to introduce to Japanese readers the works of US science fiction writers in the late 1940s. He was the first Japanese writer of the genre to visit the United States, in 1953...
released by Kadokawa Shoten
Kadokawa Shoten
is a well-known Japanese publishing company based in Tokyo, Japan. Kadokawa has published both manga novels and magazines, such as Newtype magazine...
from 1984 to 1985.
The series was adapted in 1985 into an anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
film directed by Rintaro
Rintaro
is the pseudonym of , a well-known director of anime. He works frequently with the animation studio Madhouse , though he is a freelance director not employed directly by any one studio. He began working in the animation industry—at age 17—as an in-between animator on the 1958 film Hakujaden...
and animated by Madhouse
Madhouse (company)
is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1972 by ex–Mushi Pro animators including Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It has created and helped to produce many well known shows, starting with TV anime series Ace o Nerae! in 1973, and including western favourites Ninja...
and Toei Animation
Toei Animation
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...
. The screenplay was adapted by Mori Masaki, and character designs were created by Moribi Murano, who also illustrated the novel series. Takuo Noda directed the animation, and the music was composed by Ryūdō Uzaki and Eitetsu Hayashi. Kamui was released on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
by AnimEigo
AnimEigo
AnimEigo is an American entertainment company that licenses and distributes anime, samurai films and Japanese cinema. The company was founded in 1988 in Ithaca, New York by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams, III. It is now based in Wilmington, North Carolina, and run by Natsumi Ueki, Robert's wife...
.
Plot
It is the Bakumatsu period in Japan. Jiro, a young boy of both Japanese and AinuAinu people
The , also called Aynu, Aino , and in historical texts Ezo , are indigenous people or groups in Japan and Russia. Historically they spoke the Ainu language and related varieties and lived in Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin...
descent, was a foundling
Child abandonment
Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling .-Causes:Poverty is often a...
raised by a kindly innkeeper and her daughter in the village of Sai on the Shimokita Peninsula
Shimokita Peninsula
The Shimokita Peninsula is the remote northeastern cape of the Japanese island of Honshū, stretching out towards Hokkaidō. Administratively the area is a part of Aomori Prefecture....
during the last years of the Tokugawa Shogunate
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
, several years before the start of Japan's Meiji Restoration
Meiji Restoration
The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...
.
One evening, a lone shinobi
Shinobi
Shinobi is the Japanese word for male ninja. It may also refer to:*Shinobi , a series of video games**Shinobi , the original video game in the series developed by Sega**Shinobi , the PlayStation 2 sequel...
, appears out of the darkness and kills Jiro's adoptive mother and sister while the boy was away. When he returns home, he finds their dead bodies, a strange dagger and a whole host of angry villagers who blame him for killing his family. Rather than stay in the village and face a brutal crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
for the grave crime of parricide
Parricide
Parricide is defined as:*the act of murdering one's father , mother or other close relative, but usually not children ....
, Jiro escapes into the night with the dagger and meets with a buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
called Tenkai
Tenkai
was a Japanese Tendai Buddhist monk of the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods. He achieved the rank of Daisōjō, the highest rank of the priesthood....
who works for the Shogunate as an Oniwaban (Secret Police). Tenkai takes the boy face-to-face with the man who supposedly killed his family and gets him to deliver the killing blow. Afterwards, his entire village is set ablaze and the villagers slaughtered to cover up the incident. Tenkai then takes Jiro in at his temple on the island of Ezo, and has his subordinates Shingo and Sanpei train him in the ways of Ninja so that one day, he may learn of his father. Tenkai quickly dispatches Shingo to follow Jiro and make sure he stays to the same path as Tarouza, Jiro's late father.
As Jiro travels in search of answers to the mystery of his family line, he comes across a group of Japanese men beating up an old Ainu man. The old man's son, Uraka, implores Jiro's help and he quickly dispatches the punks. The old man dies of his injuries, and Jiro and Uraka escape to Uraka's home village of Shinopirika-Kotan, unaware the old man's assailants are actually agents of Tenkai. At Kotan, the village elder recognizes Jiro's dagger as the Dagger of Kamui. He states that it was originally owned by the previous village chieftain, and as given as a gift to a Japanese ninja who married the chieftain's daughter, Oyaruru. The Elder then tells Jiro that one day Oyaruru returned to Kotan alone, and eventually left the village to live upriver by herself.
Jiro seeks out Oyaruru, and learns she is his biological mother, and of the misfortune Tenkai had wrought on her family. Tenkai dispatched Tarouza to the mountain Kamui Nupuri to find a great treasure large enough to keep the Shogunate in power. Tarouza, however, broke all contact with Tenkai, and married Oyaruru. When Tenkai and his men caught up with them, he slashed the face of the infant Jiro, and sent him floating downriver in the canoe his parents would have used to escape. On the cliff above, Tarouza loses an eye to a primitive grenade, and his sword arm to Hanzou. He falls over the cliff, seemingly to his death. Jiro comes to the horrifying realization that Tenkai had tricked him; the man he stabbed was his father. During their evening meal, without ever noticing, both Jiro and Oyaruru take in a paralysis potion through the food and Oyaruru is killed with the Dagger of Kamui, implicating Jiro in her murder. Imprisoned according to village law, Uraka returns to help Jiro, who finally understands that Tenkai has been manipulating him and the time for revenge is at hand.
Revelation after revelation of Jiro's heritage and family is revealed until the final climax: A bloody showdown between Tenkai and Jiro.
The movie is very accurate in its depictions of pre-Meiji Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and deals directly with historical events such as the Boshin War
Boshin War
The was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the imperial court....
, and historical figures such as Saigō Takamori
Saigo Takamori
was one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history, living during the late Edo Period and early Meiji Era. He has been dubbed the last true samurai.-Early life:...
, Andō Shōzan, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa, Geronimo
Geronimo
Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly, "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident...
, and Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
.
Characters
- The protagonist of the story, and the son of Tarōza and Oyaruru. He was raised by Tarōza's wife, Tsuyu. After an unknown assailant murdered Tsuyu and her daughter Sayuri, the villagers no longer trusted Jiro and chased him from the village. He then began studying the ways of the ninjaNinjaA or was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations...
under the tutelage of Tenkai. As he grew to adulthood, Jiro gathered pieces to the mystery of the disappearance of his father, and he began to devise a trap to snare Tenkai. In later volumes of the novels, he adopts the name , as well as , the name based on that of GeronimoGeronimoGeronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly, "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident...
, his adopted father.
- The top agent for the Bakufu (a member of the oniwabanshūOniwabanshuThe was a group of onmitsu government-employed undercover agents established by the 8th Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune . They are sometimes described as "ninja".- History :...
) who was operating in the areas of northern Japan and EzoEzois a Japanese name which historically referred to the lands to the north of Japan. It was used in various senses, sometimes meaning the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and sometimes meaning lands and waters further north in the Sea of Okhotsk, like Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands...
controlled by the Matsumae clanMatsumae clanThe was a Japanese clan which was granted the area around Matsumae, Hokkaidō as a march fief in 1590 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and charged with defending it, and by extension all of Japan, from the Ainu 'barbarians' to the north. The clan was originally known as the Kakizaki clan who settled...
. He claims to be an ordinary high priest who goes by the name of Tenkai-oshōOshoOshō is the Japanese reading of the Chinese he shang , meaning a high-ranking Buddhist monk or highly virtuous Buddhist monk. It is also a respectful designation for Buddhist monks in general and may be used with the suffix -san...
. Through his Satsuma spy Tarōza, Tenkai learned of the mystery of Captain Kidd. After having Tarōza chased down and killed by Jiro, Tenkai began scheming to find and obtain the treasure of Captain Kidd. As he is the leader of a ninja clan, he uses many body doublesPolitical decoyA political decoy is a person employed to impersonate a politician, in order to draw attention away from the real person or to take risks on their behalf...
in order to avoid being killed himself. The character in the anime looks very much like Saigō TakamoriSaigo Takamoriwas one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history, living during the late Edo Period and early Meiji Era. He has been dubbed the last true samurai.-Early life:...
, the reason for this is never explained.
- A run-away ninja who is chasing after Jiro at the behest of Tenkai. She has the ability to split into four images of herself in order to confuse opponents.
Novels
The Kadokawa bunkoban releases are as follows:- Volume 1, February 1984, ISBN 978-4041403181
- Volume 2, February 1984, ISBN 978-4041403198
- Volume 3, , December 1984, ISBN 978-4041403204
- Volume 4, , January 1985, ISBN 978-4041403211
- Volume 5, , February 1985, ISBN 978-4041403228
The Haruki bunkoban release is as follows:
- Volume 1, February 1999, ISBN 978-4894564992
Anime
- Revenge of the Ninja Warrior, 1987, (A Heavily Edited Version of Kamui No Ken, released by Celebrity Entertainment.)
Musical score
Ryūdō Uzaki's score for the film is notable for combining rock music instrumentation with Balinese kecakKecak
Kecak is a form of Balinese dance and music drama, originated in the 1930s Bali and is performed primarily by men, although a few women's kecak groups exist as of 2006....
vocals.