PROOF
THE BACKSTORY
A PHOTOGRAPHER’S SEARCH FOR HIS JAPANESE IDENTITY
LEADS HIM TO REDISCOVER THE PAST IN THE PRESENT.AFTER YEARS OF making images out-
side of Japan, Ryotaro Horiuchi turned
the camera toward his home country.
As he questioned what constitutes
Japanese identity—and his own iden-
tity as a Japanese person—he began
looking into matsuri, the communal
celebrations held in every region of
Japan since ancient times.
When Horiuchi attended Fukushima
Prefecture’s Soma Nomaoi Festival,
where samurai descendants and dev-
otees dress in armor and compete on
horseback each July, he was “over-
whelmed and moved by the power
and human aspect,” he says.
The festival has been held for more
than a thousand years; its origins lie
in the military training of the lord of
Soma’s samurai, who dedicated their
lives to protecting his. Today’s par-
ticipants take inspiration from the
discipline, honor, and loyalty prac-
ticed by the samurai—values that havehelped them persevere through life’s
adversities, including the devastating
earthquake and tsunami that hit the
Soma area of Fukushima in 2011 and
caused a nuclear disaster.
Hearing stories of these modern-day
festivalgoers and seeing the strength of
their conviction, Horiuchi knew that
his next project would be an attempt to
“capture their personalities and their
identity as a samurai.”
The past shapes the present for
samurai admirers. Throughout the
history of the festival, attendees have
adapted to the evolving times without
relinquishing their connection to the
samurai. And through these portraits,
Horiuchi has found his own sense of
self—one that shifts with changes in
time and place but preserves the spirit
of tradition. —GAIL TSUKIYAMA
Gail Tsukiyama is a best-selling author whose
novels include The Samurai’s Garden, Women
of the Silk, and The Color of Air.Tradition meets modernity: Samurai descendant and festival follower Mitsukiyo Monma
sometimes trades a horse for a Harley.