Menpō (面頬): Samurai War Mask
Menpō (面頬): Samurai War Mask A detail from the " 川中島合戦図 " depicting a warrior with a menp ō in a battle. Also known as Mempō (面頬 ), Mengu ( 面具 ), Men Yoroi ( 面鎧 ) or Menoshitabō ( 目の下頬 ) , this particular and very discussed armor piece was a war mask quite iconic and often associated with the Samurai warriors of Japan. In this article I will describe it, with some sketches of mine and I'll try to address the elephant in the room: was it really used? Men pō are very mysterious objects ; to add further confusions, beside having multiple names, they changed a lot over the ages and this make really hard to trace its usage or development. In any case, they are bounded to the other famous Japanese war mask called h anb ō ( 半頬 ) which will have a dedicated article in this blog. In fact, it's quite likely that these mask were modified hanb ō, that were fitted with a nose piece in between the 14th and 15th century, the period in which the first (and one of the ...