A solitary statue of a man and his dog stands in a park - a normal, unassuming sight. One can almost be forgiven for easily missing the fact that this is Saigo Takamori (西郷 隆盛(隆永) one of the most revered samurai of all time in Japan. Saigo was an ex-government official who reluctantly drawn into leading the Satsuma samurai against the Japanese government during the Meiji era (明治時代). The rebellion failed and Saigo was killed in final battle.
But what's this? Why is a statue dedicated to the leader of a failed rebellion?
Saigo Takamori is often considered the last true samurai, and embodiment of all the values any true Japanese should aspire to:
The defense of traditional Japanese values (in Saigo's leading the samurai)
against the Western Barbarian's influence (against the westernized Meiji government)
and ending in ultimate sacrifice (Saigo's death is often romanticized as a seppuku, a samurai style suicide) - the same type of sacrifice that is atypical of so many religions:
The location in which the statue is located is not random - Ueno Park is the site of the former Kan'ei-ji (東叡山寛永寺円頓院) temple, a temple associated with the Tokugawa shogunate, whose end signified the end of the samurai and the start of modern Meiji Japan. The temple was destroyed when the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown.
Tokyo itself was where the capital of Japan was relocated (from the old capital Kyoto) following the end of the old samurai rule of the Tokugawa.
The end of a way of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BcVg3Sapjk
Saigo Takamori statue photo from Japan Probe
