Pop Stars and Jidai-geki

The other day I turned on my TV and was greeted with an unexpected sight: popular SMAP singer and “talent” Tsuyoshi Kusanagi — yes, the guy who got arrested for public nudity in a Tokyo park at 3 am a few months ago — dressed up in full samurai armor as he promoted his new film. Jidai-geki, or samurai period dramas, are a big part of popular culture in Japan, and there are several quality historical dramas on every week, such as the ongoing adventures of Mito Komon, a traveling cloth merchant who is secretly an agent of the Shogun, and who pulls out his official Tokugawa crest exactly at 8:46 in every episode since the series began in 1969. Virtually every major actor or actress comes to a point in their career when they’ll be called on to perform in one of these historical dramas, and it’s quite interesting to see how stars like Gackt will translate historical personas into their own style on camera. One interesting subset of the jidai geki genre is the “time traveling samurai drama,” such as the Sengoku Jieitai movies in which Japan’s modern military is conveniently transported back to the country’s “Warring States” period where they have a chance to change history with their advanced weapons. In Kusanagi’s new film, he plays a warlord who is visited by a Japanese boy who has accidentally time-slipped into the past from modern-day Japan. (Hmm, that sounds kind of familiar.)

Scenes from the upcoming time-slip samurai drama Ballad, said to be the “Titanic” of Japan.