National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Sakakibara Yasumasa sits in armor in the sugamuodoshi style, comprising underwear in light yellowish green with a cloud motif, the front cuirass with a crawling dragon motif and the kusazuri (a protective skirt that hangs from the bottom of the cuirass) with a tatsunami (wave crest) pattern and a sujikabuto (a helmet with vertical lines) with a standing front decoration of sankoken. In the back, there is a flag on which the character "無 (nothing)" is written in the tensho (seal-engraving) style and the sun is represented. He wears a tachi (swords made to be worn with the cutting edge down), the sheath of which is rimmed almost entirely with a covering (fukurin) and has a red sageo (string), as well as a relatively long wakizashi, a companion sword to the tachi. Compared to the armor, the representation of the tachi and wakizashi is more formalized. This picture depicts the toseigusoku (armor in Nanban style) not with an ordinary uchigatana sword, but with a tachi.