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Boshin War Woodblocks

(Text and Photos by Peter Ujlaki)

More than a decade of political intrigue in Japan culminated in January 1868 with the start of two years of civil conflict called the Boshin War. Clans loyal to Yoshinobu, the fifteenth Tokugawa shogun, engaged in a series of battles against a shifting coalition of forces dedicated to young Emperor Meiji.

Famously, the coalition of forces promoting imperial restoration also championed the need to rid the country of Westerners, under the banner sonnô jôi ("Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians!").

The Boshin War (Boshin is the dragon of the zodiac coinciding with 1868) had several characteristics unique in Japan's history. For one thing, the barbarians themselves joined the fray. The French wound up backing the shogun, and the British, curiously, the side espousing the expulsion of foreigners. (This bit of irony ended in April, when the imperial rallying cry was altered to Fukoku kyôhei ("Rich Country, Strong Army!").

Another unprecedented feature of the conflict was the public's ability to follow its unfoldment in words and pictures. The repressive Tokugawa law forbidding any printed references to political happenings post-1600 remained on the books, but the woodblock industry — especially in Osaka, far from the reach of the already weakened regime yet near pivotal early battles — sensed an opportunity.

Boshin Senso fig 1
Fig 1

Reportage

Publishers provided coverage of "breaking news" by means of kawaraban, one-color, text-heavy broadsheets flogged on the street by crier-vendors. Somewhat more up-market bookshop fare were prints like Fig 1, a hosoban that showcases Boshin figures from the early going. Perhaps due to its modest size and coloring, no attempt was madehere to throw off the censor by disguising names and dates.

The same can not be said of Fig 2, a sweeping full-color overview of military events by the important Osaka ukiyo-e artist Sadahiro II (1840-1910; active 1864-76). An ôban triptych that stitches together several incidents, it offers a fiery panorama of the war's first stage.

Near the villages of Toba and Fushimi, just south of Kyoto, the shogunate's samurai engaged for eleven days in skirmishes with pro-Emperor battalions. Thanks to the later being armed and trained in a more modern way, but also due to numerous betrayals and defections, the Meiji army (identifiable by their banners and occasional "bear hair" headgear) prevailed, causing Yoshinobu to abandon Osaka Castle and flee by sea to Edo. In the days that followed, Osaka Castle was burned.

Boshin senso fig 2
Fig. 2

War Camouflage

Much of the above is depicted in Sadahiro's design, but the print title and long text tell a different saga. In a ruse well-known to the ukiyo-e public, Sadahiro's publisher avoided trouble with the authorities by pretending to be relating an incident that took place in the same region from pre-Tokugawa days, a 1582 attack by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to avenge the forced seppuku of his mentor, Oda Nobunaga.

Similar to the action in the print, Hideyoshi's samurai engaged in open combat and multiple fires were set. But in 1589 the flames did not rise above Toba or Fushimi (seen in middle of left panel in Fig. 2), and certainly not over Osaka Castle (top right panel). Instead, the conflagration set by crack ninja commandos consumed the stronghold of Akechi Mitsuhude — the man who doomed Nobunaga — at Yamazaki (middle of the center sheet). It would seem that censors were far more sensitive to printed word than the actual image.

Aerial views (ezu) were something of a vogue in 19th-century Edo ukiyo-e publishing, but were unfamiliar to Osaka artists, perennially focused on Kabuki. Note how Sadahiro wrestles with multiple vanishing points and an odd trail of blue smoke — as well as the more conventional floating clouds — in an attempt to telescope time and place.

Fortunately, the Boshin battles moved away from Kansai soon enough, and there was no demand for more war images until the start of the Seinan sensô civil war (Satsuma Rebellion) in 1877. Though less than a decade later, by that point Osaka publishing had radically changed, and so had the rest of Japanese society.

This article originally appeared in Daruma, no. 70, Spring 2011. Copyrighted © text and pictures reprinted with permission.

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