Gokenin Zankuro

The story of the vassal with little to do about nobility

Let me ask you what comes to mind when you think of the word noble or some similar word. Aristocrat, vassal, bureaucrat, baron, or any other such title. If you’ve seen enough medieval media you might default to European nobles in their fancy castles with arguably too much bright light, too much orchestral music, and too many grand displays of grandeur…

Yeah, isekai ironically lost its luster for me.

For those of you with a historian brain like me, you’re probably thinking of another country’s depiction of nobility and privilege, without a royal or divine right prerequisite. A way to say, “This is my land, these are my things and or people, and I merely needed to praise the royal family for some more.” Same s[chorus]t, different country. Eh, I don’t live in a country that has a royal lineage–I live in one that broke away from that and celebrates it in great fashion every year.

“Oh say can you see…!”

The series that tickles my historian senses is one that Tubi has acquired by way of multimedia magic: Gokenin Zankuro.

御家人斬九郎や！

With leading man Ken Watanabe as the titular Matsudaira Zankuro, the series ran from January 1995 to February 2002. The series follows a very low-ranking Tokugawa Bakufu retainer Matsudaira Zankuro. Although a part of the dual-sword carrying samurai class, the Tokugawa Clan’s consolidation of power forbid open warfare between bushi warriors, so Zankuro, whose salary comes from taxed rice handed down from the Tokugawa government, lives on a paltry income supporting a middle-aged to elderly mother.

The old way a samurai clan earned money was to enter a contract with a daimyo who can supply them with a yearly stipend. The power structure was evident once the ink dried on the scroll. Field an army in the hundreds to low thousands and send men to defend or better yet expand a province? Have it all! Field an army barely crossing into the low hundreds during peacetime? You’ll have to math out the rice and ration it, Akitsu-san.

Damn, I haven’t thought about Sarai-ya Goyo in ages.

Now, that’s all well in good in times like the Kamakura period up until the fall of the Ashikaga in 1573, when a vassal can swear fealty to the shogun and become his guard corps in peacetime and serve as a force multiplier in wartime… and suddenly, I’m getting flashbacks to my time playing the Uesugi clan in Europa Universalis IV. But let’s say one clan becomes top dog and brings the others to heel, when fighting on the land is disallowed and totally not due to getting trounced by Admiral Yi’s turtle boats in Korea.

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ Totally unrelated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, for example: if one clan swears loyalty to a shogun during the Kamakura government (and presumably sends warriors to hold back the Mongol advances on Tsushima Island), they were likely to see their storehouses overflowing with taxed rice. If it happened again centuries later, the most they’d have is the title, the rank, the old manor, the privilege to produce their swords if disrespected and in terms of money, an omamori or looted Money Toad statue bought from an unscrupulous western trader on Dejima Island and crossed fingers.

In Zankuro’s case, the jobs he takes are in secret seeing as Big Daddy Tokugawa-sama won’t like what’s going on in Edo, but then again, big governments can’t see everything, even when they’re essentially military dictatorships that implement police state policies after receiving foreign visitors, and in the case of the Edo period, while there wasn’t supposed to be violence on the streets, there still was violence because bandits and brigands ignore laws out of principle and laws tend to be blind to reality and nuance. The second amendment declares that an American is allowed to own a gun, but that’s been put to the test by individual states over the course of the last few decades.

So what kind of jobs does Zankuro take? Anything.

With a hit to his dignity, the day jobs look like buffoonery, but because the Bakufu sleeps, he can serve as an armed escort for visiting dignitaries, busting ronin and yakuza skulls for an average unfixed pay price of 30-50 ryo. Conversion rates are a bit tricky, seeing as the Meiji government didn’t exactly do anything special once the new currency became the yen. However, the show running from the mid-1990s to the early-2000s means that, on paper, roping in that much in gold pieces should have made Matsudaira Zankuro-dono unnaturally wealthy. Unfortunately, being a low-ranking vassal with a greedy mum and a sake dependency make this a terribly reality.

Actually, any kind of addiction is known to take a hit to one’s income and it needn’t necessarily be gambling. Tobacco, opium (historically China’s problem thanks to Britain, and possibly also Japan’s if Victoria 3 isn’t lying to me), alcohol, gaming these days, any luxury item, and consequently any item with a high body count.

“She never mentions the word ‘addiction’/In certain company…”

What the show fundamentally gets at is the idealistic life of a samurai retainer can look glamorous from the outside looking in, same as how automatically s[ka-ching]tting cash will make one’s dreams come true, as told by 18th century poets Daryl Hall and John Oates. But there’s a hell of a bunch of things that don’t immediately jump out at you until it’s yours.

In this case, being a samurai. Or realistically a retainer. Which era sounds more exciting? The one with all the wars or none of them? The upsides of being a proto-bushi in the Asuka period means being there when the samurai class begins to make a name for itself with bloodstained chokuto, or tachi, or Kamakura-Nanbokucho early katana. The downsides besides death are that if you’re the daimyo, you don’t just live and die by the blade–your life may be at the mercy of an enemy or a turncoat, made even more severe by the time shinobi started making a name for themselves. Your enemy in the next province could hire a seemingly inconspicuous farmer to poison your meal or his own tipped weapon to use on you. Not at a long distance, espionage doesn’t work like that. Right, Bames Nond?

Bond… Silver Bond

Someone you thought you could trust raises a blade and plunges it into your chest. ブルータス、君はどうだい？So why not transition to being a daimyo or retainer during peacetime? Because that concludes in you doing three things: F[shing]k, and, all. And again, that’s on paper. The Tokugawa government wasn’t any different than its European or even emerging American contemporaries, hyping itself up as the first mammal to wear pants and make plans irresponsibly. Like Zankuro, your prestigious position precariously protects your plots and people from protracted penetrative property paywalls, but being disallowed from working for a living is either the best thing you’ve ever heard of or the biggest pair of hands passing your ass around for the lifetime f[squelch]k-a-roo.

On that note, I have to wonder how many historical pirates and bandits came from well-off backgrounds. Even if they were cast down or fell from grace, that knowledge and experience didn’t go to waste; it merely got repurposed for evil.

The overall theme of the show deals with the reality of being in such a position as Matsudaira Zankuro-dono. He should be well-off and carefree on paper, but that stipend is barely a speedbump to a guy with his specific circumstances. And there were numerous nobles in the Tokugawa Bakufu who either sided with them as a means to strengthen the Shogun against Western influence or formed the Satcho Alliance to help bolster the newborn Imperial Japanese Army and Navy to show them what a real modern country can look like if you give them a few decades.

If the TV series or its original novel written by Renzaburo Shibata in the mid-1970s takes place or advances to the Bakumatsu era, then it’s possible Zankuro would, in some way, join up with the Satcho Alliance and the Imperial Court for a better position. The Matsudaira surname should mean he stays loyal to the Shogunate as a retainer, but his stipend is such a joke it steals the show better than any Abbott and Costello performance.

Aiya, I went back to the 1930s for this one (～￣▽￣)～

If he did indeed make it to the late-Bakumatsu to early-Meiji era, then he could enter the Kazoku system consisting of five noble titles. From highest to lowest, Duke/Prince to Marquis to Count to Viscount to Baron. And I peg Zankuro-dono as primed for Marquis but bumped down realistically to Viscount or Baron, seeing as how the Imperial Family would come first.

Maybe the book is in English? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’d be a hell of a read.

The entire series is currently available on Tubi. If it’s still there by December this year, great! If not, get the flag, get the eyepatch, get the peg leg, get the hook hand, and sail the seven seas, Roronoa Zoro!