This paper examines the image of Musashi Miyamoto, a legendary swordsman of the early Edo period, depicted in Kan Kikuchi’s novel Kensei Musashi-den and its film adaptation, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Miyamoto Musashi. Both the novel and the film were released during the Greater East Asia War, soon after Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel Miyamoto Musashi gained a reputation as a "wartime’s greatest bestseller" and made Musashi one of the most popular heroes.
Yoshikawa’s Miyamoto Musashi was disseminated in various other media, theatrical productions, kōdan (readings), naniwa-bushi recitations and films. Although the film adaptations followed one after another, it does not mean that the image of Musashi remained unchangeable. At "the bottom of the decisive battle," Kikuchi, then president of Daiei, and Mizoguchi attempted to establish a new image of Musashi. Under the wartime situation they worked, how was it possible for them to realize their authorial imagination away from Yoshikawa’s novel?
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