The print above is one of a series, The Chronicles of the Eight Dog Heroes of the Satomi Clan of Nanso… quite a mouthful! It is a remarkable story that has not directly translated to western tastes and contains a complexity and rhythm which has failed to ignite European or American imaginations. And yet it is a great story, a tale from a genre which is wildly popular in other forms… cast very much in the manner of Avengers Assemble or other Marvel Universe sagas. It is a tale of destiny, revenge, courage, BROTHERHOOD! and the supernatural… what could possibly be unpopular about that?
The genesis of the story makes most people uncomfortable because it begins with the union of a King’s favoured dog and his daughter, the Princess Fuse. This union gives rise to the conception of eight souls, contained within eight glowing orbs… each representing a Confucian value, namely: humanity, justice, courtesy, wisdom, loyalty, sincerity, filial piety and obedience. The conception comes about in the manner of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, a king offering a reward for an unfeasible act. In this case, the Lord offers his daughter if his dog will rid him of his enemy. The dog, Yatsufusa immediately returns with the severed head of the king’s foe and demands the hand of his daughter. The king cannot refuse and the dog and the princess go into exile. The birth of the eight dog heroes takes place after the selfless act of suicide by the Princes Fuse… she rips open her belly releasing the magical orbs and dies in the arms of her father. The dog meanwhile has been shot by the retainer in the print at the top of the page, Kanamari Daisuke Takanori.
Sixteen years later, the Confucian beads find homes in the wombs of eight human mothers, who give birth to the heroes. The plot follows their growth and leaving home, the development of the characters and the various swashbuckling adventures that lead them to meet and recognise each other as the diaspora of the Satomi clan. The prints in the great Kunisada series pictured on this page are taken from the kabuki production of the Hakkenden and are both portraits of the heroes and some of their attributes, the minor characters of the plot and the actors themselves whose physiognomy would have been instantly recognisable to the theatre going public.
The story itself, although it arguably has its roots in traditional folk tales such as the 108 Heroes of the Water-Margin, is primarily the invention of the author, Takizawa Bakin, (1767 – 1848). He worked on the many volumes of the novel for 28 years, releasing illustrated, woodblock printed volumes in regular editions. It was of course wildly popular, the more so when it garnered publicity from the kabuki stage, and then from the woodblock prints like this series that were commissioned to memorialise the perfomances. The plays were shorter, more concise adaptations. Wrongs are righted and the brothers defeat evil and reclaim their family name.
The stage production of the Hakkenden is famous primarily for the final scene which is one of the most spectacular in the kabuki repertoire. One of the brothers, Inukai Genpachi, has set out to find the last, missing brother and stops at an inn, to find that the innkeepers wife and father have been consumed by a ghostly cat witch, disguised in female, human form. She betrays herself by licking fish oil from a lamp and Inukai Genpachi leaps to assist in the fight. The scene ends with the appearance of a gigantic demonic cat atop the roof of the inn, with the brothers doing battle in scenes of aerial combat above the audience.
Of course this fraternal adventure has many faces in different cultures; I’m thinking here of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas which coincidentally has similar scenes set in French inns and the same episodic structure. All of these tales use cliche and stereotype but somehow we the audience… we the sophisticated audience even, we don’t mind! We are not alone in longing for The Golden Age… it seems as if the mind seeks the reassurance of the mythic past and has done even IN the mythic past! We live with cat-witches and demon dogs, with jolly chevaliers and brothers-in-arms and we need the heroes and the villains and we need art to show us that the Golden Age is really and truly there; behind the curtains.
Toshidama Japanese Prints 