WHEN THE GIJINKA IS A SEVERE DOWNGRADE COMPARED TO THE ACTUAL OBJECT
I AM SO ANGRY AT HOW BORING NIHONGOU LOOKS LIKE IN TOUKEN RANBU, WHEN HIS REAL "SELF", THE ACTUAL SPEAR, IS THIS BRAUTIFUL.
(you can look at it for yourself here, btw, HD photography, you can also zoom in to see the details)
Nihongou's character art seems to me like the artist completely had no idea what the actual Nihongou looks like in person.
Like, in the artwork that the spear shaft is black with some gold, which made me think that the artist had tried to look for photos, maybe from museum visitors, but they just can't see the details properly. I've seen visitor comments saying that amateur photography cannot capture the mother of pearl well, and it just doesn't show as clearly in photos due to the lighting. Even in today's HD-quality attendee photos it just looks black with some shine.
Plus the description did say that in older time periods Nihongou had a black lacquered shaft and black fur sheath. Maybe the artist saw the photos, assumed the shine was gold patterning on an otherwise black shaft, so that's why the art looks like that.
Like, the game staff probably just didn't want to restrict the artist about the design, so maybe that's why they didn't bother giving specific references/instructions to the artist, but I refuse to believe the artist would have designed Nihongou to look so boring like that if they'd known how beautiful the actual spear is.
"The handle is newer" is not an excuse. It's not current-day-new. The story says that many swordsmiths tried to copy Nihongou down to the spear's mother of pearl shaft. It's got to be at least Edo or Meiji-era, then, and it's still part of the spear's "history".
A number of the other swords had designs based on its current appearance in museums anyway, and not necessarily how it's supposed to look like in the past (for example Ichigo Hitofuri's red and gold sheath).
(even if the sheath was not modern either, the original Ichigi Hitofuri was burned in the Osaka Castle war in 1615 and reforged later, so this red sheath can't be any older than that)
Even with maintaining Nihongou's "drunken bum" vibe in connection to his lore, if the artist had taken into account that brilliant inlay, I would wager his design would probably end up being more like a "peacock drunk" type. All fancy and dressed up but a drunk bum regardless. He's not a Shōsanmi for no reason.
