Ushiwaka

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This is a drawing of Ushiwaka, inspired to the design of the Taiga Drama Yoshitsune of 2005.
I did this drawing to have it inserted in my thesis, which is about the Japanese historical character of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, so here we go with some Japanese history! Ushiwaka is the childhood name of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, one of the greatest general of Japanese history. When he was still just a baby, the clans of Minamoto (Genji) and Taira (Heike) were fighting to gain power. We are in the second half of XII sec. Minamoto eventually lost to Taira, and the most part of its members were killed, exiled or reclused to Buddhist temples. Ushiwaka had his life spared and was allowed to live in the capital along with his mother until the age of 6, when he was sent to a Buddhist temple, exactly at Kurama. Here he was given the name of Shanao, and legend says he was taught the art of sword and war by the king of tengu in the mountains of Kurama. No willing to become a monk, Shanao eventually decided to run away from Kurama and headed to the north of Japan, where Fujiwara no Hidehira, a supporter of Minamoto, had his court. For the rest of the story, Ushiwaka/Shanao is known as Yoshitsune, so I’ll talk about it in the next drawing
I hope you found it interesting! And if you wanna know more about Yoshitsune, check Wikipedia! --> [link]
You may know already Yoshitsune since it’s a quite popular character of Japanese culture, and you can find him in:
-the Taiga Drama of 2005 (and 1966)
-manga Shanao Yoshitsune by Sawada Hirofumi
-videogame Genji Dawn of the Samurai (Playstation2)
-videogame Genji Days of the Blade (Playstation3)
-other anime and games, and so on: [link]

I'll discuss my thesis on July 7th, aaargh I'm a little afraid *A*''