Bakumatsu (2018 Anime)

BAKUMATSU (Anime, 2018): A Historical Sword Fantasy Featuring Bakumatsu Swordsmen and the "Jishingi" Pocket Watch

BAKUMATSU (2018) is a 12-episode TV anime produced by Studio Deen. Set in the Bakumatsu period, the era in Japanese history when swords were used most practically, it is a historical fantasy battle story in which characters modeled on the real historical figures Takasugi Shinsaku and Katsura Kogorō use the power of the "Jishingi," a pocket watch with the power to transcend time and space, to halt attempts to alter history.

The Bakumatsu Era: The Last Battlefield Age of the Japanese Sword

The Bakumatsu period (1853–1868) was the last era in which the Japanese sword was widely used as a weapon in actual combat. The sword combat by the Shinsengumi in the Ikedaya Incident (1864), the close-quarters fighting in the Battle of Toba–Fushimi (1868), and the use of swords by shishi and rōnin across the country were the last historical examples of the Japanese sword functioning as the "combat weapon of the samurai."

The Bakumatsu period, the setting of this work, was the "end of the practical age of the sword." It was also the period just before the Sword Abolishment Edict (Haitōrei, 1876) turned the Japanese sword from a practical weapon into an "art object and symbolic weapon."

Takasugi Shinsaku and Katsura Kogorō: Real-Life "Swordsman Shishi"

Takasugi Shinsaku (1839–1867) and Katsura Kogorō (1833–1877), the models for the characters in this work, were both shishi who had mastered swordsmanship. Takasugi Shinsaku was a master who had received full licensure in Yagyū Shinkage-ryū, and Katsura Kogorō was a first-rate swordsman who served as jukutō (head of the dojo's students) at Saitō Yakurō's Renpeikan dojo of Shintō Munen-ryū.

Shintō Munen-ryū is a swordsmanship school that developed in the late Edo period and is known, alongside Kyōshin Meichi-ryū and Tennen Rishin-ryū (the school practiced by the Shinsengumi), as one of the major swordsmanship schools of the Bakumatsu period. What the characters in this work embody is the figure unique to the Bakumatsu: "a shishi who mastered swordsmanship, a warrior who lives through the era by way of the sword."

The "Jishingi": A Setting in Which a Time-Transcending Pocket Watch Is the Key to Time and Space

The "Jishingi," the central gimmick of this work, is set up as a "special pocket watch-type device with the power to transcend time and space in the Bakumatsu." The setting in which this device has spatiotemporal power is rooted in the tradition of the "supernatural abilities of divine swords and spirit swords" in Japanese sword culture.

The "power to ward off fire" of the Kusanagi no Tsurugi and the "spiritual power to cut down yōkai" of the Kumokiri: these supernatural abilities bestowed on legendary swords of myth and tradition form the cultural background of the "supernatural function" embodied by the "Jishingi" in this work.

Contemporaneity with the Touken Ranbu Boom: Historical Sword Pop Culture in 2018

2018, the year this work aired, was a time when the Touken Ranbu boom (2015 onward) continued and a pop-culture framing of "swords × history × characters" was established. While this work is positioned within the context of "pop culture that personifies and makes swords the protagonists," which Touken Ranbu pioneered, it differentiated itself by taking a distinctive approach: "real historical figures wield the power of swords."

Featuring Shinsengumi figures including Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō, this work holds a place in the lineage of historical sword pop culture as a title centered on "swordsmen of the Bakumatsu."

Perspective for Sword Collectors

By offering a work in which viewers can experience three historical contexts ("the Bakumatsu as an era of actual sword combat," "Shintō Munen-ryū as a real swordsmanship school," and "the relationship between shishi and swords") in the form of historical fantasy, this anime gives sword collectors a viewpoint on the "historical context of the late shintō to Bakumatsu blades of the Bakumatsu period." Set in the period before the Sword Abolishment Edict, the "last era of the Japanese sword as a practical weapon," while simultaneously depicting the supernatural and symbolic aspects of the sword, this work functions as a cultural text that symbolizes the turning point of the Japanese sword from "practical use to art object."