A View on Honnouji

Yesterday Babi linked me another manga about Nobunaga, this time inspired to the popular videogame Nobunaga no Yabou, released in English to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the game... It was a wonderful gift T_T;

So I guess that I can finally entertain you with this post about the depictions of the Incident of Honnoji from Japanese prints :D

First, a little introduction.
Contrary to popular belief, ukiyo-e prints back in the days were not considered-- "Art" as we do now.
It mostly had an entertaining flavour, even if artists were definitely keen on showing off their skills-- You may compare them to modern comics.
When considering artworks depicting historical facts or figures, you must also think that the most of these depictions were not results of actual historical studies, they were mostly based on how that fact was depicted or interpreted by a popular kabuki play-- So you find inaccuracies, or mere interpretations out of the artist's fantasy.
Nonetheless, I'm intrigued and charmed by these illustrations, so I decided to show you various interpretations of the same fact, and hopefully let you see how the episode changes in its narration depending on the period the piece was produced or the artist's intention.

( So, let's start with one of my favourites :3 )

And that's all for a long, time-consuming post that I hope you enjoyed x'D
I look forward to know which is your favourite print of the bunch :D !