"Nobunaga Monogatari" Exhibition

In this page you can see the pictures of the permanent exhibition of washi ningyo ("paper dolls") featuring scenes of Nobunaga's life in Azuchi.
The pieces are hosted in the Nobunaga Yakata (信長の館) and were donated by the Fujinokai (藤の会), a cultural association dedicated to traditional art of washi ningyo located in Chiba, and its current master Fuji Kimura. The dolls are manufactured by Kimura-sensei and his disciples.

The most of the pictures of this page are the wonderful job of Teap-dono, who, during our first Nobunaga Tour was dutiful enough to take proper pictures of everything, when I was just flailing around like an idiot :D/ Katajikenai, Teap-dono!


"Nobunaga was born in 1534.
He was called Kippōshi in his childhood."

"He had a short temper. His nannies had a hard time to take care of him, and quit their jobs one after another. Yotokuin (the fourth nanny) was the only person who can get along with him. He grew up to be a beautiful boy.
People said that he looked like a girl. His servants were very disappointed about it, because they wanted their master to be strong and brave."

"Nobunaga began to be ashamed of his looks as he knew about his retainers' expectations.
He tried to change his impressions and behave untidily.
People welcomed his way."

"Nobunaga succeeded his father.
He was only 16 years old at that time."

"Nobunaga visited Saito Dosan who was his fiancee's father.
Dosan heard about his bad reputation, so he wanted to make sure about Nobunaga's behaviour.
Nobunaga was careless of his clothes and hair.
Dosan peeped it on the way to the meeting place and thought that he was a foolish man as rumors said."

"Dosan was surprised once he saw that Nobunaga changed his clothes to a formal attire at the place of meeting.
He realized that he just pretended to be odd"

"Hashiba Hideyoshi made Nobunaga meet Hachisuka Koroku.
He gave big support to Nobunaga to build a castle later."

"Nobunaga was a fan of Nō dance."
Besides these, during our visit we had the chance to see this extra scene based on the taiga drama "Gō" that aired on Japanese TV on 2011.
It features Nobunaga, his pages (Ranmaru on the right) and Oichi with her three daughters, Gō included (on the far left).

On a parting note, I'm sure you noticed the peculiar pattern on Nobunaga's kimono during his youthful days.
It comes from the scrolls "Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga", a parodic ink painting that made fun of human beaviour and fixations by portraying people as animals.