Episode 5: Artistic Anarchy/Utter Indifference:

The dating of the episode/series. --This episode seems to give an actual date range for the setting of the series, a subject not otherwise addressed, so the line in which it occurs has been much relied upon. I would like here to present my/our theory for the series date and justifications therefor.

In the opening narration of episode 5, our narrator (Detective Manzou) says: "In 1885, an artist [Vincent van Gogh] who was much impressed by the ukiyo-e art he saw in Paris moved to the French province of Arles...But now it’s a hundred years before that." Or, "Just like that, time rewinds a hundred years." Either translation would seem to state that the present year, Champloo-wise, is 1785 or close thereabouts, and a number of discussions of the show's history and anachronisms have used that date as their foundation. However, it's not borne out by anything else in the series, and one is forced to wonder if it's an error on the translators' parts or if Manzou is just really bad at time. (Geneon's DVD dub renders it as "But now the hands of the clock turn back more than one hundred years", which is an admirable way of trimming this tangle.)

I personally do not think (and neither does Zantetsuken) that this is an accurate dating for the setting of Champloo, and blame the translating. 200 years would be closer; our best guess here for the series setting is about c. 1650-1690.

Here's basically why: there are just too many things brought up in the course of the series that, if the show happens in the mid-to-late 1600s, are conveniently contemporary to each other, or at least reasonably current. For just one example, --but there are many more--Hishikawa Moronobu (in this episode) lived from 1618 to 1694 and began producing illustrations in 1658; he's now regarded as a founder of the ukiyo-e art movement. He isn't portrayed here looking as old as he should, but at least it is within his lifetime.(Just for information's and comparison's sake, van Gogh lived from 1853 to 1890 and Paul Gauguin, also mentioned by Manzou, from 1848 to 1903. If Moronobu's sunflower portrait of Fuu did eventually come into van Gogh's possession, it had first wandered homeless for about 200 years.)

The best evidence for our date is Watanabe's own intentions.
From Newtype, October 2003, article/interview with Shinichiro Watanabe:
"The show is set during the Edo era some 60 years after the confusion of civil war lifted. But forget the historical details. Think of it basically like some period in time 60 years after the end of a war."

Recall that the Civil War period in Japan is (obviously) not the age of the American Civil War, but the Sengoku Jidai or "Warring States Era". (The latest generally listed date for the ending of the Sengoku Jidai is 1615; it spanned through the middle 15th to the early 17th centuries. It started in the late Muromachi period in 1467 with the Onin War (Onin no Ran 1467-1478), lasting through the entire Azuchi-Momoyama period, until final peace and order was achieved in 1615 of the Edo period.) SO: We can pretty safely assume that Champloo is meant to be taking place in roughly 1675. Not (evidently) quite the 1675 we know here, but some other 1675...where police palanquins have flashing lights on top, and baseball has popped into existence a bit early.

--For many more dates and other information supporting a time span closer to 1700 than 1800, see Dating Champloo

kidSN from S&S sent me the following very intriguing attachment:

While I'm not sure the image Manzou is holding is just the same--for one thing, it seems to contain more than one person--it certainly does seem intended to echo the same style. --Or, of course, it could be that what Manzou is holding is the original image that the modern painting is echoing. Either way it's a great discovery.=)

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Roukishi's gold teeth. --Credit to Erin S. for raising this question. Though they've become a Southern hip-hop fashion symbol in recent years, gold-capped teeth go back a long way: "Crowns (used to replace and cover missing portions of teeth) and bridges (mountains for artifical teeth attached at either end to natural teeth) were made of gold and used by the Etruscans 2,500 years ago. Crowns and bridges fell out of use during the Middle Ages and were only gradually rediscovered. The gold shell crown was described by Pierre Mouton of Paris, France, in 1746, and not patented until 1873, by Beers." As for China and the East, Marco Polo saw them there: "North-west of China is the frontier of Tibet, and and of the Zardandan...These people cover their teeth with a gold case, which they take off when they eat." Japan has included gold teeth in its dental care since at least the 1940's; I don't have specific record of their use in the Edo period, but anything that was known in China in older times is likely to have appeared in Japan as well. (--All the same, though it's not anachronistic, I feel pretty sure that in putting this full set of "grills" on a yakuza the artists were making a conscious visual reference to rap style--i.e., the intent to show off one's ill-gotten wealth.)

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Gerald Figal sent this: "I have a note to add to your anachronism/dating discussion in episode 5. While the Moronubu reference argues for late 17th century, all of the ukiyo-e prints in the episode argue for late 18th century (or you have to identify all of them as anachronisms). Plainly put, multi-colored nishiki-e (brocade prints) were not perfected and in distribution until after the 1760s. That these are nishiki-e are clear from not only their colors, but also by the sign in the artist's shop, which say "Nishiki- e dô" (Brocade Print Hall):

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The Yakuza Punks. These guys' hairstyles' and elements of their dress (big chain necklaces) are certainly anachronistic; the skull design of the scalp tattoo is outta-time style-wise as well, but the fact of his having a tattooed scalp is not. Tattooing had been around in Japan for more than 6000 years, and scalp tattooing was a not uncommon identifying and magical/spiritual protective device.

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Anachronisms found only in the English dub: Mugen, looking through Moronobu's smut collection, comments, "Whoa, doin' it with a squid." This is a clever reference to the fact that tentacle-porn, a mainstay of anime and manga, originated with a famous work of art in the ukiyo-e era, but it's anachronistic: the woodcut Mugen refers to, "Dream of the Fisherman's Wife", wasn't made until 1820.

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--Go back to Compete Guide to Anachronisms main page.