Why Japan loves the Three Kingdoms
Returning to the Three Kingdoms era, going into battle with famous warriors to kill enemies was a fantasy that many people have been irresistible since childhood, and now it is once again realized in the game "Crouching Dragon: Skyfall".
"Wolong: Skyfall", released on March 3, can be called one of the most anticipated triple-A masterpieces by Chinese players in 2023, and after its first exposure in June last year, it has appeared on Weibo, Douyin, B station and other platforms as a hot search several times. The 2 "Renwang" released by the production team in the past are all excellent works, and the development strength is undoubted, but obviously, the Three Kingdoms theme is the real reason why this game is highly anticipated.
In the game, players will transform into nameless warriors and use "flowing Chinese martial arts to break through the chaotic world of the Three Kingdoms". This is also the meaning of the title, producer Fumihiko Yasuda explained in an interview: "Everyone knows that Wolong generally refers to Zhuge Liang, but here we take the meaning of its hidden dragon, comparing it to the protagonist who is unknown at the moment and shines in the future." ”
The last time a similar situation occurred in the gaming industry was the release of the strategy game Total War: Three Kingdoms in 2019, when the game sold more than 1 million copies in its first week, and according to the review language on Steam, domestic players may have contributed more than half.
The difference is that "Wolong: Skyfall" is an ARPG game with a relatively low threshold for getting started, and the effect of live broadcast and dissemination is also better, referring to the previous years in the game mode there are some similarities in the game mode "Wolf" and "Elden Law Ring", "Wolong: Skyfall" The domestic popularity of "Wolong: Skyfall" still has a lot of room for fermentation.
Regardless of the final result of "Wolong: Skyfall", domestic players always have a thorn in their hearts - this is another "Three Kingdoms work made by the Japanese".
Even if we put aside the differences in industrial routes and game quality between China and Japan for the time being, Japan's fascination with the three countries has far exceeded the normal situation of the next country's love for exotic stories.
Love the Three Kingdoms, how much do you love?
In 2020, a movie called "Three Kingdoms New Solution" was released in Japan, taking the spoof route, the whole film is full of subverted character images and Japanese-style cold jokes, and there are high praise comments on Douban that "Chen Shou will cry when he sees it".
However, for "deconstruction" or "subversion" to have a market, the premise is that the audience is familiar enough with the cultural matrix. "Three Kingdoms New Solution" finally won 4 billion yen at the box office in Japan, ranking seventh in Japan's annual box office list. In another context, it is easy to understand the weight of this real money: if the film "Big Talk Japanese Warring States" is released in China, no one will care at all.
Japan's ACG industry is far more developed than live-action film and television, and the three countries have always been a hot theme. As early as the eighties and nineties of the last century, there was an animated series that cost 1.5 billion yen and took 4 years to produce, divided into "Dawn of Heroes", "Burning Yangtze River" and "Distant Land" three parts, the importance of shooting and national influence, similar to the "Journey to the West" animation produced by CCTV in the late 90s. The first "Dawn of Heroes" eponymous BGM was later used by TVB "Dragon Babu" and other works, and it also has a high reputation in China.
Dawn of Heroes Music: Yokoyama Seiki - Background Music Tour • Magnificent Chapter
The earliest "Three Kingdoms fever" in the field of manga was Mitsuri Yokoyama's "Three Kingdoms", which began to be serialized in 1971 and was completed 16 years later, with a total of 60 volumes and more than 70 reprints, which was the enlightenment of the Three Kingdoms for countless Japanese.
In the 90s, "The Passage to the Sky" opened up another path in the field of anime, this manga completely uses Cao Cao as the protagonist, and reconstructs the story of the Three Kingdoms with the brushwork of Japanese blood. Since then, the development of the Three Kingdoms genre in Japanese manga and animation has moved away from the historical interpretation and has become able to feature any character as the protagonist and combine with any popular element.
"One Ride for a Thousand", which began to be serialized in 2000, turned the stage into a youth campus, with a strong charm and selling meat attributes; 2002's "Zhuge Kongming: Horizon of Time and Land" caters to female readers and turns all the characters into beautiful men; 2007's "Three Kingdoms of Steel" renders fantasy combat style; 2010's SD Gundam Three Kingdoms Story, as the name suggests, is a Three Kingdoms version of the Mecha Brawl combined with the Gundam IP...
This "magic reform" practice has continued to this day, in fact, it is also a guarantee that the output of the theme of the three countries in the Japanese entertainment industry is sufficient. The just-released "Wolong: Skyfall" is not "honest" realistic, but draws inspiration from the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and adds a lot of gods and demons elements to the game.
In the field of games, Japan can be called a pioneer in promoting the culture of the three countries to the world. It all started with a birthday present that Koei President Yoichi Ogawa received from his wife: a personal computer. Koei switched from dye company to game company, and in 1985 released the world's first three-kingdom-themed video game "Three Kingdoms".
The hot sales of a game will always attract imitators and competitors, and many Japanese factories have come up with their own Three Kingdoms games after "Three Kingdoms", the more representative ones are Namco's "Overlord's Continent", Capcom's "Devouring Heaven and Earth" and so on. However, only Glory has always worked in the same field, and later opened two product lines, "The Legend of the Three Kingdoms" and "True Three Kingdoms Matchless".
With the passage of time, the two series of "Three Kingdoms" and "True Three Kingdoms" are not only still innovating, but also have a trend of "reverse promotion". "Three Kingdoms: Strategic Edition", which often ranks in the top 10 best-selling lists on the App Store, comes from the genuine license of the glorious "Three Kingdoms", and the "True Three Kingdoms" released in the mainland the year before last is "a Chinese film based on a Japanese game based on history".
Of course, Japan is not only happy to develop itself, but domestic works on the theme of the Three Kingdoms have often been popular in the past.
CCTV's 94th version of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" TV series is more typical, soon after the domestic broadcast, NHK TV traveled far and wide, bought the copyright for $15,000 per episode, and also used it for post-production such as Japanese dubbing at a cost of $10,000 per episode, which was broadcast in Japan in April 1995 and broadcast twice in three years at the request of the audience. Last year, Guan Yu's actor Lu Shuming passed away, and many netizens posted condolences on the daily push.
When John Woo's film "Red Cliff (top)" was released in Japan, it won the box office championship for 5 consecutive weeks, and finally broke the box office record of Asian films (excluding Japan) in Japan with a score of 52.41 million US dollars, and a year later, the record was broken again by "Red Cliff (below)" with 56.37 million US dollars. The Beijing News reported that year that "Chibi" had a 90% satisfaction rate in Japan, and John Woo believed that "this has a lot to do with the Japanese people's love for the culture of the three countries."
This enthusiasm sometimes motivates ordinary people to do amazing things. Sakura, who calls himself a "otaku", usually does not leave home and does not understand Chinese, but because he loves the Three Kingdoms too much, he completed a 180-day cross-border backpacking trip and traveled to more than 100 attractions in China. He wrote his experience into the travelogue "Three Kingdoms Shiman", which once became the first place in the Amazon travel book sales list the year the book was published.
On a larger social scale, Japan had an interesting phenomenon - the introduction of the power and employment of soldiers in the Three Kingdoms into modern business management and interpersonal relations, and the phenomenon occurred against the backdrop of Japan's economic boom in the 70s and 80s.
In 1985, the inaugural issue of "Wish" magazine compiled a special issue of "Three Kingdoms: A Treasury of Business", and some scholars in the special edition proposed that Matsushita Konosuke made Matsushita Electric a large enterprise precisely because of Zhuge Liang's strategy and tactics. Shosuke Tachima, a professor at Keio University, compiled a bibliography of Mikuni studies, and in the eight years from 1979 to 1987, he published as many as 18 monographs on Mikuni economics and management.
When China's economy began to take off in the 21st century, such "interpersonal relations in the three countries" and "management from the perspective of the three countries" were also very popular in the market. It is not uncommon to "learn from history" in China, and Japan has a similar social atmosphere, which reflects that they have turned the three countries into local cultures.
Japan's comprehensive academic research on the three countries has not stopped, Shintaro Ito, professor of the Department of Chinese of Nimatsu Gakusha University in Japan, publishes the "Catalogue of Japanese "Three Kingdoms" Research Papers every year, the statistical scope includes various monographs and papers, a total of 91 (books) in 2019, the most recent available is 2021, in the case of "the number of online seminars for two consecutive years, the number is far less than before the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia", there are still 46 (books).
From exotic to native cultures
Many people may have sensed in their daily contact that Japan's use of the term "Three Kingdoms" is very confusing, not only does not specifically refer to the history books written by Chen Shou, but can even be used in novels, comics, games and other later adaptations, equivalent to the domestic use of "Three Kingdoms" as a collective name.
This habit of use has to start with the translation history of the "Three Kingdoms" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The habit of use is still a small historical byproduct, and clarifying the process of Japan's acceptance of the Three Kingdoms basically answers the question "why do Japanese people love the Three Kingdoms" from a historical perspective.
During the Tang Dynasty, the Japanese emperor sent Tang envoys to China many times to study, and the historical book "Three Kingdoms" was also introduced into Japan, and the "Catalogue of Japanese National Records" clearly introduced this: "The sixty-five volumes of the "Records of the Three Kingdoms", written by Chen Shou, the son of the Jin prince, and Pei Songzhi, the doctor of the Song Dynasty. The earliest record of the "Records of the Three Kingdoms" appeared in 760, a biography of the nobles, "The Legend of the Fuji Family", in which a comment reads: "Dong Zhuo's tyranny also existed in my country." This shows that the "Three Kingdoms" had been read by some nobles at that time.
However, there is a cultural gap between the ancient Japanese aristocracy and the common people, and the story of the Three Kingdoms is popular in Japan thanks to "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". The earliest known publication of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is the Jiajing book in 1522, and the earliest Japanese record of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is the reading list of the appendix of the "Mr. Lin Luoshan's Collection" in 1604 (at that time, nobles could directly read Chinese), and the speed of transnational transmission was already fast in ancient times.
At that time, Japan entered the Edo period, the political situation was stable, life was stable, and folk entertainment was also very popular. In 1689, a pair of monk brothers at Kyoto's Tenryuji Temple translated and published the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in its entirety under the pseudonym "Hunan Wenshan", which was the first time in Japan to translate a foreign novel, and purely for non-utilitarian purposes, the novel quickly spread to the citizen class.
The translation refers to Li Zhuowu's criticism, and the mainstream of Qing dynasty China reading the Three Kingdoms is the Mao Zonggangben written in 1679, although the different content has caused many subsequent influences, but it can almost be said that the popularity of the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" in China and Japan at this time was basically synchronized.
As we all know, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is also known as "Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and Hunan Wenshan directly translated the title of the book as "Popular Three Kingdoms". The influence of this translation lasted for two to three hundred years, and later when the trend of translating Mao Zonggangben arose in Japan, only a few versions were translated into "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and "Three Kingdoms" was thus fixed as a common title for history books and novels, and slowly expanded to refer to the entire Three Kingdoms theme.
During the Edo period, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms also had some radiation impact. For example, the "Tang dialect (Chinese) learning boom" sparked by the public, and the "Minutes of the Chinese Literature Classroom of Kanazawa University Junior Chinese Studies" recorded: "From 1711 to 1716, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms became one of the study books in the form of language teaching materials. ”
In addition, similar to the mainland Ming and Qing dynasties, there is a linkage between novels and other art disciplines, and in Japan, this effect is mainly manifested in ukiyo-e and puppet shows (humanoid pure glass). In 1709, the humanoid Joryuri performed "Dead Zhuge Retreat Zhongda" for the first time, and for centuries later, the story of the Three Kingdoms existed on the folk stage of the mainland and island countries separated by a sea.
There are also a large number of picture books based on the story of the Three Kingdoms, such as "Painting and Interpreting the Three Kingdoms" and "Picture Book Sanding Wakong Ming". Scholar Ueda once pointed out: "In the late Edo period, the Japanese people became more familiar with the stories of the Three Kingdoms, and painters changed the form of the original novel illustrations, so the Japanese Daidou version of illustrations appeared in Japan. ”
"Dai Dou Version" refers to Katsushika Dai Dou's "Picture Book Popular Three Kingdoms", the characters in the picture book are biased towards the Japanese, the armor is mainly Japanese-style stacked shoulder armor and waist armor, and also integrates the pattern characteristics of Chinese Hanfu and Japanese folk clothing, which means that from this period, the Three Kingdoms were absorbed by Japan as part of their own culture.
Of course, not every formed ancient culture will be introduced into modern times. The origin of the modern Japanese view of the Three Kingdoms can be attributed to one name: Eiji Yoshikawa.
Eiji Yoshikawa is known as "the first Japanese popular novel". He did not know Chinese, so he took the translation of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" by Hunan Wenshan, and other predecessors, rewrote and recreated it in a way that was in line with the appreciation habits of Japanese people, and serialized the "Three Kingdoms" novel in newspapers and periodicals from 1939. In the preface he wrote: "I do not abbreviate or copy it, but write it as a newspaper serialized novel." Liu Xuande, Cao Cao, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and other major characters have added my explanations and originality to write. The words and phrases that can be seen everywhere that were not originally available are also my point drawings. ”
Structurally, Yoshikawa's "Three Kingdoms" is divided into ten volumes, Taoyuan, Qunxing, Caomang, Chendao, Kongming, Chibi, Wangshu, Tunan, Disashi, and Gojohara, and the "Taoyuan" chapter adds many original plots with Liu Bei as the protagonist, and the whole book begins like this:
The first year of Later Han Jianning.
About 1,780 years ago.
There is a traveler.
In addition to wearing a sword around his waist, he is full of rags, but his lips are red and his eyebrows are clear, his eyes are more intelligent, his cheeks are plump, and he always has a smile, in short, there is no obscene and lowly appearance.
Afterwards, Liu Bei stood on the bank of the Yellow River and shouted:
"The ancestors and the ancestors are above, please bless me Liu Bei, protect my life, restore the great Han, and recast peace!"
Whether it is the way of depicting or the words and deeds of the characters, it is obviously very different from classical Chinese novels. The book also ends after "Starfall Autumn Wind Gojohara", Yoshikawa said: "As soon as Kong Ming died, my strength and literary thinking in writing novels weakened, and I could only end here. ”
Because Zhuge Liang's life is in line with both the spirit of Bushido and the aesthetic of material mourning, he has been the most popular character among Japanese literati and readers, and Yoshikawa continues to amplify this. After the beginning and end changes, there is no longer the theme of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" "long time must be divided, divided for a long time must be united", and it has become a "new Japanese version of the Romance".
The bigger change is at the character level. In Yoshikawa's writing, Cao Cao appears as a beautiful aristocratic boy "white-faced lang" instead of "white-faced traitor", with heroic arrogance determined to end the chaotic world; Guan Yu did not kill bullies, push carts and sell dates, and he became a Caotang teacher who was "familiar with "Spring and Autumn"; Zhuge Liang is not a "wise and close demon", he can use the southeast wind purely because he understands the climate, the altar is deliberately mysterious, to buy time for himself to escape from Eastern Wu, and the "five-way retreat from the enemy" is painstakingly thought out behind closed doors for many days; Perhaps it is also because some of the deified characters in the original work have faded their halos, and Zhao Yun's martial courage has been more prominent...
Not only that, Yoshikawa's "Three Kingdoms" also adds ink to many female characters. For example, Liu Bei suddenly woke up to the desire to revive the Han Dynasty, because his mother broke the cup and woke up. Another example is the original "Tool Man" Sable Cicada, after assassinating Dong Zhuo, he was arranged to leave a desperate poem and commit suicide with a tragic end for life.
It is worth mentioning that this feature has also been widely inherited in later generations. In "Crouching Dragon: Sky Falls", there is a scene comparable to the heroine's "Red Crystal". The glorious game has recreated a large number of women from the Three Kingdoms, Zhen Ji, Sun Shangxiang, Guan Yinping these conventional character names, all created or promoted by the game, among which Sun Shangxiang's nickname "Bow Waist Ji" comes from Yoshikawa's "Three Kingdoms".
"Red Crystal" in "Crouching Dragon"
After the publication of Yoshikawa's "Three Kingdoms", it had a high national popularity in Japan, almost replacing the status of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Later, there was Yokoyama Guanghui "Three Kingdoms", which was caricatured as it was, and then there was Glory that caused the "Three Kingdoms fever" in the game field... Following this vein, most of Japan's Three Kingdoms-themed works, especially the character characters, have not separated from the shadow of Yoshikawa's "Three Kingdoms".
Whose "Three Kingdoms" is it
In addition to the verifiable historical context, Japan's love for the three countries may have some deeper cultural reasons.
The first is the oft-mentioned "similarity between the Three Kingdoms and the Sengoku of Japan." The time span of these two periods is similar, and the wonderful elements such as the pursuit of deer, the art of war, and the singling of military generals are similar, and more importantly, many historical figures can even correspond one to one, so it is easy for the Japanese public to accept.
Oda Nobunaga entrenched in Kyoto, Tianxia Bubu like Cao Cao who "took the Son of Heaven to order the princes", Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who started in cloth and failed to forcibly conquer the enemy country in his later years, and Liu Bei have some similarities, known as the "god of war" and Uesugi Kenshin, who attaches importance to love and righteousness, is easy to think of Guan Yu... Of course, the Three Kingdoms are also ancient to the Warring States, and some Warring States figures were originally called the Three Foreign Names during their active period, such as Takenaka Hanbei is known as "Ima-Kongming", and Honda Tadakatsu is praised as "Japan's Zhang Fei" and so on.
The glorious "Matchless Great Snake" series proves and carries forward this similarity, the game simply opens up the two eras, and hundreds of Three Kingdoms and Warring States characters can always be excavated on the basis of historical facts to find some correspondence and interaction.
"Matchless Snake 3"
It is easy to overlook that the contrast between the Three Kingdoms of China and the Warring States of Japan is actually a historical coincidence - soon after Tokugawa Ieyasu ended the Sengoku period and established the shogunate, the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was introduced to Japan in the early Edo period and translated. With this temporal succession, it is only natural that the story of the Three Kingdoms quickly spread among the people and that Japan brought the two similar eras closer together.
Moreover, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is scarce for Japan. Xu Yingjin, a professor at Fudan University's School of Philosophy, said: "Popular military history novels like 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' that unabashedly show Machiavellian tactics are not found in Japanese history. ”
That is, before the introduction of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the Japanese had never seen such a novel that used strategy "without moral obstacles to achieve its goals", and the scarcity caused popularity. Not only that, when "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was introduced, the common class became the main body of literary and artistic consumption, which just filled the weak board of secular culture in traditional Japanese literature and art, and thus became one of the sources of the secularization of Japanese literary and artistic creation.
Finally, there is also the view that the "Three Kingdoms" have some cultural significance for Japan. The earliest historical documents in Japan are the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, both of which were written in the early 8th century, and earlier historical materials can only be found in documents from other countries.
In the world, the earliest recorded history books of Japan come from the Han Dynasty in China. There are several sporadic strokes in the "Later Hanshu Dongyi Lie": "Huan and Ling, the great chaos of the Yin Kingdom, and even more attacking each other, there has been no master for many years." Later, there were many exchanges between the Wei state and the "Evil Horse Tai Kingdom" recorded in the "Records of the Three Kingdoms and the Book of Wei", and the Wei king Cao Rui also gave the queen the seal of "pro-Wei Waowang".
In other words, the Japanese people's enthusiasm for the Three Kingdoms may be similar to the strong attraction of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors and the flood myth to many Chinese, all of which are subconsciously curious about the origin of their own civilization.
Thousands of years later, Japan has actually built its own three-country entertainment recreation system. As mentioned earlier, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was "shared" in China and Japan, and the Three Kingdoms were absorbed into the native Japanese culture as early as the Edo period, but Yoshikawa Eiji's "Three Kingdoms" has led the "Three Kingdoms of Japan" in a new direction in modern times.
In China, Mao Zonggangben's description of Cao Cao's "rape", Guan Yu's "righteousness", and Zhuge Liang's "wisdom" are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the people read and adapt various cultural and entertainment works are still Luo Guanzhong's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"; However, in Japan, the initial blueprint for recreation was Yoshikawa's "Three Kingdoms". These are essentially already two three-country cultures.
Therefore, in theory, "how our Three Kingdoms theme is always made good by Japan" is actually not very true, and there is no need to envy or resent.
The premise is that the two "three cultures" have equal strength in terms of export volume and quality.