Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East. Part Two: The Men of the Orient

This is the second stage of our Journey into the East - looking at the visual and sculptural elements of the Orient in Warhammer. Inspired to finish this write up by the announcement that Dave Morris and Jaime Thompsons Tetsubo - an unpublished draft of an Oriental supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is being resurrected by Daniel Fox's for his  Zweihander RPG.

 The original intent for Furui Hanmā II was to cover all the Orient, Nippon and Cathay material produced for Warhammer in 1984, however there is really too much material to do any kind of justice to in just one blogpost, so this has once again been split into future posts. I also made a quick banner for these posts, based on the Oriental Heroes logo (which we'll get to eventually) and featuring Two Dragons in Clouds by Kanō Hōgai...

Furui Hanma Banner

The story so far: Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East. Part One covering the Citadel miniatures and Warhammer material produced between 1982-83, where Oriental and Occidental tropes rub shoulders, shake hands and team up in a funky fresh East-West fantasy fusion.

Now read on...

The Men of the Orient 

While a couple of Samurai  do appear in Warhammer 1st Edition Tabletop Battles book in artwork taken from an earlier flyer they not given any separate rules game-wise than any other kind of human in armour with a sword, they are fairly generic warriors, in eastern garb, fighting Orcs, which by the 1980s had become a generic western fantasy genre trope of evil.

All that changes with the publication of the Forces of Fantasy (1984) supplement. The East-meets-West approach is abandoned and instead the fantasy humans based on different historical cultures are split up and  given their own distinct geographical settings to exist within, and given statistics, profiles and special rules that differentiate them in gameplay terms. Forces of Fantasy makes the Samurai statistically the best fighters and archers, outclassing any other humanoid troop type in the game. Alongside the superior Samurai, there are the more mundane Ashigaru or foot soldiers.

Men of the Orient

Hieta Noh mask.

The illustration accompanying the army list (I think by John Blanche, although clearly the style is different to his other work, perhaps intentionally to reflect the oriental feel) with its dramatic moustache and eyebrows resembles the Noh mask called Heita.

Noh masks are found in traditional Japanese theatre, each mask expressing a specific character type that appears across multiple plays in the Noh genre, rather than depicting a single specific character. The Heita mask represents the idea of a mature, heroic, victorious warrior. His bushy eyebrows and ruddy complexion are due to the time spent on the battlefield, rather than at home plucking his brows and hiding from the sun.

Noh masks are extremely influential in Japanese character design beyond the theater, in comics and videogames, from Wario to Ogami Ittō, the Heita expresses a shared language of short-cuts that define characters that can be overlooked by western audiences. The choice here, in using Hieta to depict Oriental warriors seems completely accurate and culturally appropriate and goes some way towards integrating Japanese cultural ideas and visual language, into Warhammer rather than simply providing an image of a western ideal of the pseudo-medieval oriental warrior.

As well as the standard warrior-types, there are several specialist troops. The Kamikazee are obviously named after the suicide bombers of World War Two, and play as suicidal shock troops. These have nothing to do with the 16th century Japan that the Samurai are based on, and have no medieval historical origins. The Kamikazee are as clear an indication as any that the Men of the Orient are grounded in contemporary notions of the Oriental warrior, rather than an attempt to create a strictly historical fantasy.

Forces of Fantasy also introduces Vim-to Monks.  For those readers who may be unfamiliar with British soft drinks that are extraordinarily popular in Arabian countries during Ramadan, Vimto is a mixed fruit flavoured beverage, sold as both a syrup and a carbonated drink. They do sweets as well. I assume "Vimto", being born in Manchester in 1908 and not having any particular relation to the far-east, or kung-fu, seems to have been chosen purely as a pun on "Shinto", the traditional religion of Japan.

This crude punning is somewhat essential to the early Warhammer experience, running throughout the names of Slann, Ogres, Halflings, and other humans, but is also displays a somewhat disrespectful  attitude towards what is an important religion.

C05 Specialists | Martial Arts Monks

Fizzy-drinks based puns aside, the description of Vim-to Monks given in Forces of Fantasy describes them as unarmed, unarmored, or with sword, bo-staff or nagitana, so only cover the C05 Martial Arts Monks miniatures that are derived from the Chinese Shaolin school of kung-fu, wearing tunics and trousers, and not the ones based on the Sōhei Buddhist warrior monks of Japan, who are hooded, armoured and carry polearms.

While Shaolin can be found in Japan - it crossed the sea from China to Japan in the 18th Century, like the Kamikazee reference this is quite a distance from the 16th Century Momoyama period of the Samurai and Ashigaru. As well as contracting historical periods, the Men of The Orient also collapses geography, combining both Japanese and Chinese forms,  a vague concept of The East which blending, or ignoring, of the differences between Oriental cultures and history, strongly shaped by a Western lens rather than any attempt to create any kind authentic Eastern voice or a historically anchored basis from which to build the fantasy.

Forces of Fantasy also gives us a brief guide to the iconography of The Men of the Orient as might be found on their banners and other regalia. Alongside the mitsudomoe shinto symbol for Hachiman - the god of war and archery is the Heita Noh mask, both of which go some way to showing that, whilst wildly historically inaccurate, how well thought out and researched the iconography of the Men of the Orient is. One of the symbols in particular stands out - a rendition of the traditional Japanese manji 卍.

Yurr dere's a swass sticker top left.

The manji can be drawn in either direction, turning to the left, or turning to the right, the manji in a Japanese context relates strongly to Buddhism, is used to mark temples on maps, and seems to mean something like 'good luck' or 'positive vibes' and usually goes to the left. 

Japanese Manji

The symbol appears twice, both in the army list iconography and in the depiction of two oriental warriors.

Samurai Rising Sun and Mount Fuji motifs | John Blanche | Forces of Fantasy 

However, instead of the usual Japanese left-wards manji, Warhammer presents us with the right-wards turning version.

Of course, the symbol is more familiar to western audiences as the one appropriated by the Nazis from the Hindu to propagate the idea of Aryan racial supremacy, and is probably one of the most recognisable and reviled visual symbols in modern European history. There is no necessity for the use of the Swastika in Warhammer. It could easily have been avoided in favour of more obviously Eastern symbols like the yin-yang or any number of Japanese family crests (or mon), but given that it appears twice, and both the Noh Mask and mitsudomoe show some research was undertaken, it's hard to write off the swastika as a mere accident or casual historical reference.

various mon or family crests.

There are number of possible readings of the Warhammer Oriental Swastika, none of which are exclusive to the others.

The Warhammer Oriental Swastika, could be a reclaiming of the Swastika symbol as a Manji or Kamon - the symbol is being deliberately re-aligned away from its association with Nazism and Aryanism, and placed into an previous historical context as an act of semiotic disarmament, robbing the symbol of it's specific power in singular political context, a form of genericide, where a symbol is shown to be so generic that any claims for specific use become ludicrous, and any flag-worshipping power the symbol might have for those gathered under its banner diminished.  There have been periodic attempts at reclaiming the swastika over the years and are generally frowned upon as being 'epic fails' or worse, attempting to normalise the agenda the symbol has come to represent. The symbol itself has no intrinsic value, it's just some geometry, it is purely the narratives that surround it and its repeated use within specific contexts that form meanings, and while signifiers do shift, escaping the weight of history is not something that happens easily.

Then there is a  'punk' repurposing of the Swastika as pure agitprop (in a literal sense of 'agitating propaganda') the symbol only used in it's intent to shock and offend, as instigated by the prime punk provocateur, incidently of Jewish decent - Malcom McLaren, and carried out by future Queen of the Goths and Bromley Contigent superstar Siouxie Sioux.

Siouxie Sioux 1976 | Caroline Coons |via

While the adoption of the swastika by punks may have only been to upset and annoy the previous generation, it was swiftly taken up by far-right youth as an endorsement, with the all too predictable confusion and violence ensuing as the cultures clashed in the gig venues, dancehalls and streets of the late 1970s.

Notably Siouxie herself is no stranger to Orientalism, with the lyrics of The Banshees debut single, Hong Kong Garden, released in 1978 ostensibly being inspired by her local Chinese staff takeaway being abused by gangs of neo-nazi skinheads. The song is by no means unproblematical lyrically, celebration and condemnation ring out alongside crude stereotypes and witty rhymes in something of a stream of consciousness embracing all things Chinese, and there are later forays into 80s Japanomania.

Siouxie 1982 | Sheila Rock | The Face |

Siouxie Sioux Hannya Noh Mask / Onibaba T-shirt | Rabatu Smitu | 1982?

Similarly we could look to David Bowies Thin White Duke persona flirting with fascistic imagery and Orientalism:

Visions of swastikas in my head,
Plans for everyone
It's in the whites of my eyes,
My little China girl 

David Bowie - China Girl 1983

Oldhammerists often talk about the influences of 80s popular culture on Warhammer in a vague way, as if the statement itself provides validation of some innate quality, or that locating something in time is the same thing as explaining it. In Warhammers appropriation of the Swastika / manji in a Japanese context as the Warhammer Oriental Swastika, clear parallels can be drawn with sifting of post-war cultural detritus and ambiguous play as performed by eclectic post-punk magpies Siouxie and Bowie.  Whether Bowie or Siouxies entanglement of the orient and fascism directly inspired Blanch or Priestly or Halliwell, or not, they are part of a broader cultural milieu superficially adopting the appearance of the rejected (fascistic) and exotic (oriental) as a performative, creative strategy, pushing against and challenging the mainstream consensus culture.

The Tale of Sanyo Kawasaki | Book of Batallions

The Warhammer Oriental Swastika can be read as a reference to the Japanese role as one of the Axis powers allied to the Nazis in WW2, as a kind of 'honorary aryan' proxy-nazi. We already have the Kamikaze which establishes Warhammers Men of the Orient as being based on as much post-war stereotypes of Oriental as medieval stereotypes, and this is a further continuation of a post-war influenced theme, rather than a pseudo-medieval one. Then The Book of Batallions which appears in Forces of Fantasy describes Sanyo Kawasaki (named after a well known Japanese electronics and motorcycle company, respectively) - who feels his government is 'weak and liberal' and besieges their capital city for not sinking a 'foreign' ship on sight, a cartoon of a strident insular ultra-fascist, who is ultimately made ridiculous by committing ritual suicide by standing upside down in a bucket of cold water.  The combination of anti-liberalism and violent xenophobia with the Swastika leaves very little room for doubt of what ideology is being pointed at in the character of Sanyo Kawasaki.

Samurai | Sanyo Kawasaki (?) | Forces of Fantasy

There is some irony in this as it takes what is essentially an occidental movement, bundled up with ideas of the racial superiority of Western Europeans and projects it onto a foreign, exotic culture, while swastika waving Nazis themselves were more than happy to use the kinds of romanticised Medieval imagery that Warhammer would produce for the Men of the North and Men of the West to promote their aims - strident norsemen and feudalist society. On one level it can be read as a form of psychological splitting - the externalisation of unwanted or negative traits that can't be admitted to or integrated  and the subsequent psychological projection of those traits on to a foreign or distant Other. Rather than accept and deal with (one way or another) the complex relationships between the fantasy of medieval Europe and fascism they remain hidden, or sublimated, and instead Warhammer renders it 'elsewhere'.

I will insert a break here, just to point out that Evan Webber, in the comments below, notes that the Tale of Sanyo Kawasaki closely follows the story of Yukio Mishima actor, author and militant Japanese nationalist who committed ritual suicide in 1970. The time-frame certainly puts these events within reach of the authors of Warhammer. and reframes the narrative as near contemporary satire, and puts paid to the idea the Orientalist conception of Nippon was born from ignorance or off-handed.

It should also be noted the Tale of Sanyo Kawasaki only describes one clan, or one faction, by no means are all Men of the Orient, nor even the dominant clans, portrayed as fascistic - this certainly wouldn't be the last time Warhammer attempted a cartoon of fascism.

Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East. Part One

It has been a truth long acknowledged by Oldhammerists that the Warhammer World was cobbled out of Citadels existing historical and fantasy miniatures ranges, rather than created out of whole cloth. It weaves in elements such as Araby, Cathay and Nippon, not because there was some grand underlying world building motive, but simply because Citadel made miniatures of historical Arabian and Oriental figures, and Ye Olde Warhammer was ultimately designed as a marketing tool to sell them.

Early in 2018 Gideon over on Awesome Lies completed a series of excellent blog-posts covering the Warhammer Japan proxy "Nippon", covering ground such as the cultural milieu of late 70s early 80s japanomania encompassing Hai-Karate and Bruce-Lee movies, considering the published written sources on Nippon, from Warhammer 2nd Edition, Ravening Hordes, WFB3 and WFRP moving on to  review Dave Morris's excellent 'but not quite Warhammery enough' Tetsubo, to speculating what a successful WFRP1e Nippon could have been like.

This inspired me to examine the sculptural and visual sources, and consider what they might tell us about the presentation of The East in early Warhammer, and perhaps outline the world it describes.  However, there turned out to be a much, much larger quantity of Oriental based miniatures over a far greater period of time than I'd expected, a steady stream of releases over a roughly a five years period. Then in May Nico completed his massive and excellent Nippon Army, once again prompting me to revisit the East,  but still, no, and more recently Whiskey Priest wrote up two excellent blogposts on Nippon, which again made me think I should really get this done, but the whole thing was too big and messy. So time to chop it up into manageable chunks.

In this first post, we focus on the Pre-Warhammer Citadel miniatures starting in 1982, and those released throughout the publication of the first edition of Warhammer (1983), with a slight reference to Forces of Fantasy (1984). These lay the foundations of the portrayal of Far Eastern themes in Warhammer, setting down some of the basic principles that are adhered to throughout it's five year development.

Fantasy Tribe Samurai (1982)

Orcs Vs. Samurai | Flyer 1982

The first set of miniatures we meet is one of the historical ranges that Citadel produced in the early 1980s. Sculpted by Michael and Alan Perry, described as from the 16th Century Momoyama period. Known as the 'Fantasy Tribe' Samurai - something of a misnomer, as they are catalogued elsewhere as just SAM Samurai, there are foot Samurai, Ashigaru (including one armed with an Tanegashima) as well as horse-mounted Samurai and a pair of Warrior Monks who resemble the Japanese Sohei Buddhist Warriors.

The Sōhei - Saito Musashibō Benkei

The flyer clearly juxtaposes the Samurai against scimitar and pole-arm wielding Orcs. The drawings are posed facing each other as if opposing sides in a conflict and the overall effect is situating the historical Samurai into a Tolkienesque fantasy milieu, perhaps an Orcish invasion of 16th Century Japan, or a re-staging of The Battle of the Pelennor Fields from The Lord of the Rings outside Osaka Castle. The Samurai simply stand as enemies of the Orcs, stalwart heroes as the Rohirrim or Gondorians.

As we will see, this mixture of Oriental and Western Fantasy themes will dominates much of the early development and presentation of The East in Warhammer.

FA12: Fantasy Adventurers Ninja (1982)

FA12 Ninja!

Ninjas turning up in Citadels range of models is most probably in response to the appearance of the Assasin class in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1978), and here there is no doubt that the FA12 Ninja is being presented as a Fantasy Adventure gaming miniature, and not as a historical war gaming piece.

Ninja themselves walk a curious tightrope between historical fact and folkloric fiction. While assassins and spies certainly existed in feudal Japan, they would have typically been dressed in common garb so as to blend in with the people. The classic image of the figure in black garb may have come from “kuroko” - the stage-hands of Japanese Kabuki theatre, whose costumes rendered them 'invisible' on stage - and so their appearance became a visual short-hand for 'sneaky git' used by illustrators, rather than a historically accurate depiction of what Ninja may have actually worn.

Hokusai | 1817

Nonetheless, what the FA12 Ninja, hidden in plain sight amongst his fellow pseudo-medieval european adventurer types indicates is this mixture of eastern and western tropes, a motif we find yet again with our next model, Yamato Takashi.

Bryan Ansell's Heroic Adventurers: Yamato Takashi (1983)

Yamato Takashi | Bryan Ansell | 1983

Yamato Takashi | Heroic Adventurers Box insert

It is notable that while the first edition of Warhammer makes mention of "Medieval and Dark Age wamiors together with Arab types and fearsome Vikings." other than a small crop of the FTO/SAM advert used as an illustration for the 'Combat' section,  no explicit mention of the Oriental or Far East appears at all.

However, shortly after the publication of Warhammer, Citadel released a boxed set of miniatures entitled Bryan Ansell's Heroic Adventurers, sculpted, unsurprisingly by Bryan Ansell. This set included an insert of rules sheet for the then brand new Warhammer game. Amidst the Elric clones and pseudo-medieval european tropes of early 80s fantasy, there is a Samurai. Yamato Takashi, making him the first published explicitly eastern figure in Warhammer. He has something of an authentic sounding name, Yamoto being the name for a region, dynasty, period and ethnic subgroup of Japanese and Takashi, in some writings meaning 'Samurai', indicating him as something of an archetype.  His character description however falls off the edge of offensive cliche, having him both be "inscrutable" and also appearing to be servile whilst having ulterior motives, while the model design itself is suitably heroic, and his statistics make him by far best fighter of the band of adventurers - again setting a trend that would continues through early Warhammer portrayals of Samurai as superior warriors.

C05 Specialists: Martial Arts Monks (1983)

Like the FA12 Ninja model, filled a niche in the Assasin character class, the C05 Martial Arts Monk miniatures are likely to have been designed to meet the gaming requirements of the Monk character class in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook. 

C05 Specialists | Martial Arts Monks

As with the Samurai range, there are a few that resemble Sōhei, with their face coverings, at least one of which seems to be a SAM Warrior Monk  but with a slightly larger axe possibly remodelled due to casting or breakage issues, while the majoirty seem to be based on the tunic, trousers and shaved head of the Chinese Shaolin. 

Shaolin Monk

Considerable years before Quentin Tarrentino finally materialised Fox Force Five  in Pulp Fiction as the Deadly Viper Assassin Squad in Kill Bill vol. 1, Citadel were headlining an all-star all-female action Chopsocky sub-range of miniatures in the C05 Mistresses of the Martial Arts in the First Citadel Journal.

Mistresses of the Martial Arts | Citadel Journal

 

Deadly China Doll |1973

The appearance of one of these Female Kung-fu artists continues through both illustration and advertising, turning her into something of a recurring Iconic Character for early Warhammer in the same way Riolta Snow or Gotrek and Felix will come to the fore in their respective generations.

May 1983 Flyer | Tony Ackland | I kung-fu the Nazgul in the face

Like with the Fantasy Tribe Samurai vs. Orcs flyer from 1982, in the May 1983 flyer we see an 'oriental' character - in this case the female martial arts monk - fighting traditional Tolkienesque Dungeons & Dragons type monsters, this time being the robed and hooded Nazgul on a desolate hillside in a scene reminiscent of the Battle of Weathertop from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, where a Ranger and Four Halflings stand their ground against undead spirits, and it's hard to imagine that iconic reference wasn't the original intent.

David Carridine | Kung Fu | 1972

Our female martial artist is somewhat reminiscent of David Carradine in the  early 70s tv-series Kung Fu in which a Shaoling monk of American-Chinese parentage travels across 19th Century America in search of his long lost brother. This theme, of a hero being trained in the Martial Arts in the 'east' then heading to distant western lands is by now a common trope in genre fiction, influencing everything from the 1970s Iron Fist to the 2010s Batman

Conversely it is equally possible to imagine the  Ringwraiths, Elves and Zombies could be fighting in the ruins of an ancient ruined Shaolin temple, it's hard to distinguish the architectural style from ruined cyclopean masonry, but there are no clear Oriental references being made in the images architecture or scenery.

Martial Arts Monk, with crossbow | Forces of Fantasy | Tony Ackland (1984)

The same Female Martial Arts Specialist also appears in Forces of Fantasy (1984) in the image above, of a European medieval, 1960s style Robin Hood being out-shot by our top-knot wearing, be-tunicked female assasin-monk. The trees and foliage don't seem particularly Far Eastern, and the Robin Hood figure suits a Sherwood Forest, so it is simple to read the image as a European fantasy landscape. The image is quite amusing on a number of levels, one is that the bowman is the exact same fellow used to illustrate the Shooting section in Warhammer 1st Edition, here being given his come-uppance in the Return Fire section of Forces of Fantasy.

Again, I have to say Tony Ackland is second to none for building these kind of narratives into his imagery, I don't know of any illustrator from the early 80s who really brings tabletop rules to life in such an effortless way, it's not just fantasy art, but fantasy art about gaming. There is also some irony in Robin Hood, folk hero fabled bowman of Ye Olde England being out by a female Eastern Martial Artist with a crossbow pistol, symbolically killing off the old well worn fairy-tale, ushering in a brave new dynamic era of sensibly dressed female Fantasy!

Conclusion

Before wrapping up what this means for Warhammer, it should be noted that the East-meets-West themes are by no means unique to the Citadel ouvre in this period. In AD&D kung-fu monks, Ki-Rin, Ogre Mages and Samurai Hobgoblins in lamellar armour rub shoulders with Orcs, Elves and Dragons,  and fan-made classes for the Ninja and Samurai classes in D&D appeared very quickly in the mid 1970s. Citadels ranges were designed to meet this demand from fantasy gamers, as much as they were to provide historical wargamers with suitable miniatures.

To summarise we have miniatures:

• Samurai
• Ashigaru
• Tanegashima
• Sōhei Monks
• Shaolin Monks
• Mistresses of Martial Arts
• Ninja

Then if we examine the relationships with other factions they are portrayed alongside:

• Samurai Armies fight Tolkienesque Orc Armies.
• Samurai allied with medieval fantasy adventurers.
• Samurai fight against Chaos Marauders
• Ninja appear alongside medieval fantasy adventurers.
• Shaolin Monks fight against Tolkienesque Undead.
• Shaolin Monks allied with Tolkienesque Elves and Rogues.
• Shaolin Monks kill Robin Hood.
• Shaolin Monks can be male or female.
• Oriental types appear in Western Landscapes.
• Western types do not appear in Oriental Landscapes.

There is a clear direction being set here, the Orientals, Samurai, Monks, Ninja are allied with the traditionally Lawful / Good tolkienesque tropes fighting against the monstrous Chaotic / Evil Undead, Orcs, and Chaos, and also the chaotic-good Robin Hood, they are Heroes and Adventurers, not monsterous.

If we extrapolate from that idea, the very early Warhammer world is one in which Questing Knights are perhaps just as likely to be fighting great Yokai as Samurai are to be found defending isolated villages against marauding bands of Orcs, where Mistresses of the Martial Arts rally Wood Elves against the sorcerous powers of the Undead, and Ninja are sent against the daemonic servants of Chaos.  This is perhaps a world where global travel, while fraught with danger, excitement, and adventure, is much more common than the historical analogue at a similar point of technological development, and the fantasy gaming possibilities that such a milieu where borders are irellevant and culture is set free from the moorings of geography afford are ripe for development.

Overall, the idea that Fantasy in general, and Warhammer in particular of the early 80s was primarily concerned with reproducing a Pseudo-Medieval Fantasy Europe is evidentially mistaken, no doubt some groups of players took that stance, the attitude at Games Workshop and Citadel evidences a much broader pallet of references.

Next Time, on Furui Hanmā: A Journey to the East... It's 1984, and everything explodes. C05 Specialists transmute into the C05 Oriental Heroes, there are strange new models, new boxed sets,  historical heroes figures emerging from the mists of time, and the grimacing face of Oriental Evil is revealed...