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Metropolis Japan
a day ago
- General
- Metropolis Japan
Ukai: The Ancient Japanese Art of Cormorant Fishing
Anyone who has ever cast a dry fly into a lake or stream knows that feeling. All is quiet, all is peaceful—then bam! A hungry mouth breaks the surface, the fly disappears into the depths, and the world becomes a thrashing primordial tug-of-war between worlds—man versus scaly beast. For hundreds of years, the Coast Salish people of British Columbia constructed massive weirs from willow trees to corral salmon as they migrated upstream to spawn. Hawaiian slings are designed to shoot their prey like an underwater bow and arrow. In the American South, brave noodlers stick their hands into catfish holes with their own fingers as bait. And in one small village in Scotland, flounder trampers walk into the shallows and simply step on their fish. Tickling, gigging, binning, gaffing, gillnetting, harpooning, handlining, seining, trawling, jigging—there might be even more ways to catch a fish than to cook one. Japan's Deep Connection to Fishing Bound by the sea and blessed with numerous rivers and streams, Japan has long been known as a nation of fish lovers, with different regions developing particular local cuisines along with unique methods for procuring a tasty catch. Ukai, the ancient Japanese tradition of fishing with tame cormorants, is surely one of the most unusual. Practiced in Japan for at least 1,400 years, ukai claims its origins from the Nagaragawa River in Gifu, where it endures to this day. The basic process involves tying loose wire rings around the long necks of the cormorants, enabling the birds to swallow small prey but causing larger fish to become stuck in the gullet. The fisherman, known as an usho, then pulls the cormorant back to the boat where he extracts the fish. The most sought-after catch is the ayu, a freshwater sweetfish prized for its delicate texture and flavor. While ukai in Gifu was once a practical form of obtaining fish to be consumed and sold, these days it survives for its cultural value. The traditions and skills handed down from parent to child through countless generations have led to ukai being designated as an Intangible Cultural Property of Japan and formally recognized as Goryo Ukai (Imperial Cormorant Fishing) by the Japanese Imperial Family. A Spectacle for Lords, Warlords and Travelers The entertainment value of ukai fishing was also recognized hundreds of years ago by the Japanese elite. As far back as the Heian period (794-1185), lords and ladies from the Imperial Court in Kyoto gathered on a pleasure craft to watch the usho and their birds in action. The warlord Oda Nobunaga was also charmed by ukai. After seizing Inabayama Castle by the Nagaragawa in 1567 and renaming it Gifu Castle, he began to invite friends and loyalists such as Takeda Shingen and future shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu to observe the cormorants and their masters at work, followed by banquets featuring their fresh sweetfish catch. Visiting Gifu Today: Modern Ukai Performances These days, a modern reconstruction of Gifu Castle perches beautifully, if ahistorically, atop Mount Kinka at a bend in the Nagarawa River, a picture-perfect backdrop to modern demonstrations of ukai. These ukai performances are held from May to October each year, drawing in curious onlookers from all over the world. Guests are taken out onto the river at dusk in long wooden boats, each tipped with a basket containing a blazing fire that attracts fish and provides the boatman and his cormorants with a light by which to see. If you are picturing a man and a bird linked by a single rope, think again. Each usho—clad in traditional blue shirt and hat to fend off sparks and ashes from the flames—controls his own personal fotilla of 10-12 cormorants like a master puppeteer, keeping a careful eye on the birds as they plunge underwater to catch fish. When I first witnessed it in person, the comparison that came to mind was not fishing-related at all, but of my father's hunting dogs in Canada, ranging out in front of him, searching for birds to flush out of their hiding spots. With flaming lanterns, dramatic scenery and trained diving birds, it is a wonderful spectacle unlike anything you will see elsewhere in the world. But at the end of the evening, as you sit down to your lavish post-ukai meal, it ultimately comes down to the simple pleasure of catching—and eating—fish.
Tokyo Weekender
03-07-2025
- General
- Tokyo Weekender
Efforts To Reconstruct Edo Castle Tower Keep Enter 18th Year
When people picture a Japanese castle, they almost always only imagine the tenshu or tenshukaku. Variously translated as the tower keep, main keep, or donjon, the structures were meant to be the most memorable parts of Japanese fortifications. Evolving from defensive turrets, they sometimes served as living spaces or storage, but their primary job was to tell everyone far and wide that the tower owner was a great lord with lots of disposable income and many men at his disposal. Unsurprisingly, these symbols of political, military and cultural power are most strongly associated with Oda Nobunaga, the Demon King himself. There are only 12 original tower keeps left in all of Japan, which sadly doesn't include the one at Edo Castle, better known today as the Imperial Palace. It is said to have been the most magnificent tenshu ever constructed, which is one of the reasons why a group has been trying to rebuild it for the past 18 years. List of Contents: Resurrecting History Obstacles and Opportunities If You Build It, They Will Come Depiction of Edo Castle (c.17th century), author unknown | wikimedia commons Resurrecting History After Tokugawa Ieyasu moved into Edo Castle near the completion of his unification of Japan in the late 16th century, he wanted something that would symbolize a new era in the country's history. Since Osaka Castle — the stronghold of his chief rival Toyotomi Hideyoshi — had a tenshu adorned in black plaster and gold, Ieyasu opted to build for himself a keep of pure white. Subsequent leaders would rebuild the structure to better reflect their own personality. The third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, apparently had personality to spare because his Edo Castle keep was the largest tenshu in all of Japan upon its completion in 1638. Standing at 59 meters tall, it was about the height of a 20-story building. It also featured copper-plated roofs and ornamentation. Tragically, it was destroyed during the Great Fire of Meireki of 1657. There were talks of rebuilding the tenshu, but they were dropped due to the scale of the devastation. The fire killed 20% of Edo's population and was so fierce, the prison was opened , so the inmates wouldn't burn to death. Only a stone foundation remains in what is today the Imperial Palace East Gardens. Since 2006, the NPO Edo Castle Tower Reconstruction Group has been trying to get the tenshu rebuilt with the help of their chairperson Sukeaki Ota, an 18th generation descendant of Ota Dokan, the original architect and builder of Edo Castle. Obstacles and Opportunities There's a reason why the reconstruction project has taken nearly two decades with no actual tenshu to show for it, and it's not for a lack of trying. The NPO has filed a detailed reconstruction plan with the government that accurately identifies the original location of Iemitsu's keep and aims to restore it based on historical blueprints. The organization has also located 200 miyadaiku carpenters specializing in traditional Japanese architecture like shrines and temples. They would be indispensable to bringing the Edo Castle tenshu back to life using original methods as the NPO promised. They even apparently know where to get large-diameter domestic hinoki cypress, the original material used for the tower. So why has there been an 18-year-long holdup? Well, for one, the foundation is a national cultural property, and modern building codes forbid the construction of purely wooden structures past the third story. Securing government exceptions for the project has proven difficult, and then, of course, there would have to be archeological surveys, all conducted on the Imperial Palace grounds. This isn't even mentioning the cost, which is expected to be in the hundreds of billions of yen. Even if all of that wasn't an issue, many may ask: what's the point? As of August 2023, only around 5,100 people had signed a petition in support of the reconstruction project. Is now really the best time to create a faux-historical castle tower? If You Build It, They Will Come Osaka Castle's tenshu was destroyed by a lightning strike in 1665 and only rebuilt in 1931. A lot of that was damaged during World War II, and the tower that stands in the heart of Osaka and serves as one of the symbols of the city today only dates back to 1997. It also has elevators inside and is basically a cool-shaped modern museum. And yet, Osaka Castle is the most visited castle in Japan, reportedly attracting 2.5 million visitors every year. So, it would seem that the age of a castle's tenshu doesn't really matter as long as parts of the original fortification remain and have a fascinating history. That is more than true about Edo Castle, even without mentioning the decapitated head of the god of wrath buried right by its doorstep. Proponents of the reconstruction claim that a restored Edo Castle tower keep could become a new symbol of the capital that would ultimately pay for itself. The promotional and tourism opportunities offered by such a new travel destination cannot be overstated. There is also a lot to be said about keeping traditional Japanese architecture and carpentry alive, which this tenshu would also help facilitate. Despite this, progress has been slow. If you'd like to donate to the endeavor or volunteer your time, you can contact the NPO through its official site or Facebook .
The Star
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Review: 'Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny' remaster an uneven experience
Back in 2002, protagonist Jubei Yagyu's revenge tale against Oda Nobunaga, the new leader of the demons, was cutting edge graphically and cleverly used design to overcome the limitations in the system. — Capcom To see how far gaming has come, it's important to know where it has been. Over 20 years, visual fidelity has improved so much that it's harder to tell video games from live-action movies. The voice work has taken an enormous leap as the actors behind digital characters become stars in their own right, and the gameplay has been refined to the point that older titles feel clunky at times. The quality is so much better that playing the remaster of Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny can be grating to those used to the likes of The Last of Us . But the Capcom sequel must be put in context. It was released at a time when having a protagonist that resembled a real-life actor was a novel idea and environments were static pre-rendered scenes rather than fully polygonal worlds. After all, the PlayStation 2 hardware could only handle so much. A bigger scope from the original Back in 2002, protagonist Jubei Yagyu's revenge tale against Oda Nobunaga, the new leader of the demons, was cutting edge graphically and cleverly used design to overcome the system's limitations. It was also a more ambitious title that took the core concept of a samurai defeating an army of evil and expanded it out to include a village and a wider cast of characters. It's a bigger game in scope from the original, and thankfully, developers leveraged modern consoles' horsepower to upgrade the project around the edges. It supports high-definition screens and improved graphical touches to the character models, though the blocky sausage fingers remain. All of this makes visuals passable by today's standards. The campaign isn't a treat for the eyes, but it won't scar players' eyeballs either. Important upgrades The best changes come in the control scheme and gameplay. Capcom modernises the control scheme so that players don't have to deal with the infamous tank controls of this era. For purists, the developers keep it in and tie it to the directional pad, but Onimusha 2 works much better with the free movement of the left analog stick. The team also modified the controls so that players spend less time in menus. Players can hit R3 to bring up a map to help them navigate the world, and they can switch weapons on the fly. Unfortunately, cycling through the arsenal still feels cumbersome, especially when enemies swarm players. It's often better to just pause the game and find the right weapon for the situation. Although the controls were improved, Onimusha 2 is still a product of its generation. Moving around the world means controlling the protagonist, Jubei Yagyu, across flat images and those pictures constantly shift as players move to different parts of rooms. It's almost like playing a game through security cameras. It's disorienting and players may not have a great angle on fighting foes who could be hiding behind corners or off camera. The free movement mitigates some of these issues, allowing players to dodge attacks, but again, the switching camera angles still present confusion and control issues. Ahead of its time Beyond that, Onimusha 2 has several forward-thinking ideas. It expands on the core combat with four elemental weapons and one secret armament. The swords, spear and hammer all have their advantages in combat and players will have to switch among them to efficiently defeat enemies. When demon's die, they release orbs that Jubei can absorb and use to upgrade his arsenal and armor. He even has an ability to transform into a more powerful ogre to deal heavy damage to adversaries. More importantly, Jubei runs across four potential allies on his adventures. Players offer them gifts, and depending on how they like Jubei, the supporting cast will show up in different parts of the adventure to lend a hand. That makes each play-through slightly different. Although I appreciated the characters' backstories, the horrific English voice acting in Onimusha 2 blunted any of the drama, with some scenes coming off as cringy. The performances hinder but don't torpedo an adventure that is fun but also joyously weird. Modern AAA titles have a focus-grouped sameness to them. When one genre becomes successful, other developers ape that aesthetic, and that creates deja vu projects that feel like an experience gamers have played before. Onimusha 2 is far from that. It's an unabashedly strange mix of historical fiction and the supernatural with the occasional robot thrown in. That type of energy is missing in a lot of current titles, and Capcom's remaster is a reminder that this vibrancy still exists in the past. – Bay News Area Group/Tribune News Service Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny Two stars out of four Platform: PlayStation 4, PC, NIntendo Switch, Xbox One Rating: Mature
Japan Times
31-03-2025
- Japan Times
Traveling the Three-Star Road, the tourist route made from thin air
Routes, trails and predetermined circuits — Japan can't seem to get enough of them. Only have a week to spend on vacation? It's zipping from metropolis to metropolis on the Golden Route of Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka for you. Want to stretch your legs through the countryside? A few days hoofing it along the Nakasendo Trail will scratch that itch. Feeling lost in mind, body and soul? Several weeks, months or, in some cases, years visiting each of the 88 temples that make up the Shikoku Henro pilgrimage may deliver the spiritual clarity you seek. Perhaps that's why the so-called Three-Star Road linking the central Honshu prefectures of Nagano, Gifu, Toyama and Ishikawa stands out from the pack of Japan's other prescribed tourist routes: There's really no road here at all. That's hardly the fault of the Three-Star Road itself (so named for being part of the larger Shoryudo route thus rated by Michelin's travel-focused Green guide). The landscape it cuts across transitions so dramatically from soaring mountains to valleys to mountains again that it's hard to imagine a traveler in premodern Japan finding the route — starting from deep in the cradle of the Japanese Alps, up and down mountain roads and through sweeping valleys due west for the Sea of Japan coast — desirable for necessary travel, let alone leisure. The rugged landscape of central Japan makes it difficult to recognize the Three-Star Road as a defined route. | OWEN ZIEGLER And yet, when I begin my journey over several days in late February from the mountain-locked city of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, to seaside Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, the artifice of this route quickly fades in the shine of the gems it links together. Keeps and peaks First in the itinerary is Matsumoto Castle, one of just 12 such fortifications with their original tenshu (tower keep) in Japan. Built on flat land, the views of the black-walled castle are particularly spectacular from across the defensive moat with a backdrop of the snow-capped Japanese Alps. In fact, Matsumoto Castle is so stereotypically beautiful that it's surprising to find the second floor of the tenshu occupied not by a collection of katana but a comprehensive exhibition of teppō (medieval matchlock firearms) that ranges from gargantuan muskets to hidden pistols fashioned to look like sheathed daggers. A folding byobū screen delivers context: In the 1575 Battle of Nagashino, the Takeda clan that then held Matsumoto Castle was defeated by rival daimyo Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu's first large-scale use of firearms in Japanese warfare. Matsumoto Castle is one of just a handful of surviving examples of original Japanese castle architecture. | OWEN ZIEGLER Matsumoto is known for much more than its feudal past — wooden mingei (folk art) and groundwater pristine enough to feed drinkable fountains on the city sidewalks — but the distance covered by the Three-Star Road quickly brings me west into the mountains. Snow falls in blankets on the trip up the Shin-Hotaka Ropeway and atop its 2,156-meter-high observation deck. The panorama of the Okuhida region I'm told is out there is obscured, but as if in recompense, the trees around the ropeway station are so caked in powder that they could pass for Miyagi Prefecture's famous hoarfrost-covered sentinels colloquially known as 'snow monsters.' Snow, it turns out, would become a defining feature of the rest of my journey, at times falling at historic paces of nearly 30 centimeters over six hours. After a stop in Takayama City and a superb dinner at Muku (whose local potatoes are aged to bring out enough umami to perhaps warrant adding another star attraction to the route), the next morning brings me to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Shirakawa-go. As early-riser tourists slip along the ice-slick streets, residents and shopkeepers wield poles several meters long to clear what little snow they can off the iconic gasshō-zukuri farmhouses and their sloped thatch roofs. A visit to Shirakawa-go is surely lovely any time of year, but heavy snowfall in winter makes it a special experience. | OWEN ZIEGLER To see this bucolic neighborhood practically buried in snow is sublime, but such inclement weather comes with caveats: Snow removal has its limits, and walkways can be treacherous. The pedestrian path to the Ogimachi Observatory overlooking the valley below was snowed in, leaving only a shuttle bus running every 20 minutes (plus the time waiting in the ever-growing line of tourists) as the only way up. To the coast By the time I descend from the mountains into the Tochi Plain to the north, the Sea of Japan makes the snowfall a little wetter and a bit denser but no less present. At Zuisenji temple, famous for the Inami style of woodworking that adorns what feels like every nook and cranny of its prayer halls, pillar-like icicles hang from the eaves alongside intricate carvings. Just before I depart, a massive snowdrift slides off the roof of the main hall — thunder from the gods. Even when other parts of Japan can be breaking into spring, the Sea of Japan coast brings at times unpredictable weather. | OWEN ZIEGLER When I arrive in Kanazawa, the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture and last stop on the Three-Star Road (or first, depending on your direction), I see the city has been spared the worst of the region's snowfall. Part of this, however, is how Kanazawa adapts to its surroundings. Whether it's on a tree in the Higashichaya teahouse district or a row of roadside shrubbery outside the Omicho Market in the city center, there hangs yukitsuri — a system of bamboo and rope providing extra support to greenery during the snow-filled winter months. Though gardens in Tokyo sometimes install yukitsuri as a holdover of the capital's snowier past, the pale gold harnesses are synonymous with Kanazawa. The city was once the center of Kaga Domain, the richest region in feudal Japan not directly administered by the shogunate, and its hyakkuman-goku culture — a reference to the luxurious income its daimyo commanded and the pursuit of arts and crafts they fostered among their subjects in lieu of military might. Decked out in "yukitsuri" (supportive bamboo and rope), the Karasaki pine in Kanazawa's Kenrokuen garden is a majestic sight. | OWEN ZIEGLER There may be no greater representation of this than Kenrokuen, one of the three great landscape gardens of Japan. As I arrive, the snow seems to abate, and when I reach the towering Karasaki pine, done up in conical yukitsuri and cultivated and coaxed over the centuries to reach its branches over the adjacent pond, the clouds break for what feels like the first time in days. It's a fitting end to several days spent trekking through some of the most inclement weather Japan's most rugged regions can deliver. Does that tie these disparate cities, villages and rural sites together into a cohesive route a name like the Three-Star Road seems to imply? Perhaps not, but as far as the claim to quality is concerned, it earns those stars going away. Travel and accommodation for this story were provided by the Three-Star Road . No portion of this story was shared with any third party prior to publication.
The Guardian
18-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Assassin's Creed: Shadows – a historic frolic through feudal Japan
Japan, 1581: Iga province is burning down around you. You watch on, injured and helpless as the Oda Nobunaga - the warlord responsible for numerous civil wars and the eventual unification of the country - smirks from a nearby hill. You draw your katana, the blade shining in the flickering light of the flames. This is Assassin's Creed: Shadows – part exciting ninja game, part history lesson. It's an odd combination but it comes together in a sprawling historical-fiction adventure full of discovery and deception. The tumultuous period that saw the unification of Japan and the fall of Nobunaga in the late 1500s is an ideal setting in which to play around as a sneaky shinobi and a brave samurai. The series' science-fictiony framing device is that you, the player, are diving into your ancestor's memories to hunt down a mysterious artefact by taking down a group of menacing masked samurai, one at a time. But mostly the game leaves you alone to enjoy feudal Japan. In this fraught time period, there is a sense of constant danger, each conversation like careful steps on a knife's edge. The story is complete fiction of course, but it does weave around actual historical events and figures, and the developers at Ubisoft have clearly gone to great pains to make the settings feel authentic, both landscapes and the people who inhabit them. You'll automatically remove your shoes when entering a building, and famous temples appear as they would have looked then, rather than as the tourist destinations they are now. The world truly is gorgeous, with several provinces to explore in all seasons and weathers, and period-accurate cities including Kyoto and Osaka. Giant temples rise up over busy towns full of stalls and workshops, while mossy shrines are scattered along winding paths through the countryside. You'll see Japan in all colours, too, from the gentle pinks of spring's sakura blooms, to the fiery-coloured leaves blanketing the hills in autumn, to the inky darkness of a winter's night. It's easy to be distracted by the view mid-mission when you're surrounded by ancient red torii gates, or notice a random puppet performance in the street. Ubisoft's Japan feels alive. It also feels totally overwhelming, at times. As much fun as it is to roam the countryside on horseback, scouting out new villages and historic sites, there's just so much of it that it's easy to feel lost. There are plenty of missions and side quests that will guide you around the map, but there's a lot of repetition in those tasks. To kill a high-level samurai you will need some help; the person who can help you wants a favour, which involves finding another person who wants you to kill a different samurai, and so on. Over the game's long run time, this starts to grate. The dual protagonists do help to alleviate the feeling that you're stuck in a repetitive loop. For the first 10 to 15 hours of the game, you'll step into the sandals of shinobi Fujibayashi Naoe, a young woman seeking revenge after her home was destroyed, and help her to rebuild her life and set up a network of spies and rebels from a secret mountain base. Then there's Yasuke, a principled black samurai based on the real historical figure of the same name, who appears briefly in the game's introduction, then disappears until Naoe gets close to Nobunaga. Naoe is light on her feet, capable of scaling walls and temples with ease, while also melting into shadows to creep around enemies. Her stealthy approach makes for some fun sneaky moments, such as stabbing through paper shoji screen-doors for a surprise attack. That tip-toe approach comes at a cost, though, when she's faced with a brawl. Enemy strikes hit her hard and she'll quickly get overpowered in a fight. Yasuke, on the other hand, is brutally strong, and capable of running straight through those screen doors and shrugging off sword strikes like they're a tickly irritant. He can still assassinate foes like Naoe can, but he does it head-on rather than in the shadows. In a series that has traditionally prioritised stealth, it feels extremely liberating when you bust through a castle's gate and face everyone head on. Both characters are viable options to play through most of the game and you can swap between them (mostly) at will. Unfortunately, no matter whom you play as, you'll have to put up with a few niggles in a fight. While dodges and parries feel amazing when you can pull them off in one-on-one scraps, you'll often find yourself surrounded as more opponents are alerted to your presence, which makes it really tricky to see where hits are coming from. When you're creeping around castle rooftops and taking your time picking enemies off, springing backwards into the shadows afterwards before scoping out your next kill, everything feels as it should. But the instant you get into a fight on the ground it starts to feel messy and frustrating. While I did find myself getting annoyed running back and forth between quest givers, I still can't stop thinking about Shadows. Excellent performances and emotionally resonant moments, such as Naoe's painful recovery after she loses everything she holds dear, mean you'll feel every bit of sorrow and anger alongside the game's heroes. Events are often troubling, as power struggles between lords often come at a huge cost to locals, and you see the unwelcome effects of your actions on your allies. Few other games have done such a good job with this setting, as you run through lush bamboo forests before scaling ancient castle walls and sneaking inside to steal treasures. These moments of brilliance more than compensate for its weaker points. Assassin's Creed: Shadows is released on 20 March; £59.99
