Bakumatsu Jinchuu Houkoku Resshiden Miburo (幕末尽忠報国烈士伝 MIBURO, literally "Wolves of Mibu: A Tale of Loyalty and Patriotism of the Bakumatsu"), or simply Miburo, is a Visual Novel distributed and developed by Inre, released in 2017. It tells the stories of a certain group of ronin near the end of Edo Period, depicting their various struggles, from the formation of the original Roshigumi group to their rise to power as the dreaded group known as The Shinsengumi. Similar to its Spiritual Predecessor ChuSinGura 46+1, most of the historical characters are subject to Historical Gender Flip and also features a fair amount of Fanservice, while being a faithful adaptation of history.
There has long existed a mysterious sort of power... The legends say that this power awakens within a chosen person when the nation is on the cusp of fate. A person with this power can read an enemy's weaknesses like an open book, and can cut them down with a single stroke.
The year is 1863, 10 years after the arrival of the Black Ships of Commodore Matthew C. Perry in the port of Edo, which ended the sakoku isolationnist policy of Japan through Gunboat Diplomacy. The country then entered into a period of unprecedented unrest known as Bakumatsu, causing many social classes, from the lower merchants to the high ranked samurai, to react in different ways to this forceful opening of Japan. The country eventually split into two majors factions: The Shishi, political activists mainly consisting of the Chōshū and Satsuma clans, with anti-shogunate sentiment following the movement of Sonnō jōi (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians), opposed to the pro-shogunate forces consisting of the vast majority of the samurai clans and many powerful politicians.
The Tokugawa Shogunate, having enjoyed two centuries of peace with no significant conflict, suddenly has its authority put into question for "shamelessly accepting unequal treaties to foreign powers". Many daimyos were displeased by the events and began to saw weakness in the government, and the Shishi began to form, loathing it for opening the country without the Emperor's consent, and began a series of assassinations on pro-shogunate people and foreigners, under the Sonnō jōi movement. Edo also was invaded at the time by samurai of the Satsuma clan, causing the shogunate to decentralize its power by creating three new positions: The Chief of Political Affairs, the Shogun's Guardian and more importantly, the Military Commissioner of Kyoto.
By 1863, many pro-Sonnō jōi ronin known as Tenchu gathered in the Imperial Capital of Kyoto, raising the criminality to an all-time high as many used the Emperor's name to engage in robbery by breaking into people's houses. In order to quell it, Matsudaira Katamori, the Military Commissioner of Kyoto, took matters into her own hands by recruiting the remnants of a group of ronin. Under her command, the Mibu Roshigumi was formed, and its goal is to rid the streets of Kyoto of the Tenchu. During one of their patrols, they happen to save the life of a ronin by the name of Mita Ken, alongside his sister, Mita Saya.
Within the dying days of the shogunate, Ken's chance encounter with these keepers of the peace, all of whom have their own idiosyncrasies, is where our story begins. Plus, he happens to have a mysterious power allowing him to show his enemies' weaknesses...
Compare ChuSinGura 46+1, its Spiritual Predecessor by the same author, featuring The 47 Ronin whom The Shinsengumi takes inspiration of.
Miburo features the following tropes:
- Best Served Cold: The Satcho Alliance is spearheaded by Choshu and Satsuma, both composed of clans who lost against the Tokugawa at the end of the Sengoku Jidai and were excluded from higher positions within the government. Nurturing their desire for revenge for more than 250 years, an opportunity came with the arrival of the Black Ships, giving them a motive to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate.
- Both Sides Have a Point: As commented by Kondou Isami, she acknowedges that several Shishi, despite their violent ways, are driven by their determination to reform their country, thinking that replacing the Shogun with the Emperor will allows Japan to stand back against possible foreign invasions, but consider them too radical. On the other hand, the pro-shogunate forces such as the Shinsengumi share the same broad goal of reforming the country to better adapt to the outside world without attacking foreign powers, instead choosing to focus of improving the country with the existing government by cooperating with the Imperial Court.
- Civil War: Downplayed at first, as only a few clans actively follow the Sonnō jōi movement, carrying assassinations, with loose groups of ronin in Kyoto. However, as the tensions between the Imperial Court and the Shogunate grow larger, conflict eventually escalated into a full blown civil war known as the Boshin War
.- Happens again in 1877 with the Satsuma Rebellion, caused by the aftermath of the Boshin War.
- Conscription: Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Imperial Army was mostly composed of samurai from the Choshu and Satsuma domains among many others, up until the removal of the class system which made them obsolete and replaced them with non-samurai.
- The Coup: The Tokugawa Shogunate evetually gets overthrown in 1868 by the Satcho Alliance, thanks to its advanced weaponry and unity, paving the way for the Meiji Restoration.
- Deconstruction: Miburo goes out of its way to describe the samurai as terribly flawed individuals motivated by grudge and revenge, or useless elites who mostly inherited their position with no effort, all enforced by the Tokugawa Shogunate's class system. By the time of the game, most samurai don't really follow any sort of code anymore, preferring to dabble in politics and assassinations to undermine the rule of the Tokugawa.
- The Shinsengumi is also a prime example of this, despite having their own set of strict rules, but very difficult to apply in practice: Since the majority of them are non-samurai or ronin, their attempt to emulate the old-fashioned ways of the samurai comes up as outdated and restrictive, while the country is going through a period of unprecedented turmoil with many individuals acting outside the law, without being bound by any rules.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Several of the Shishi vehemently oppose the presence of foreigners in Japan. While there was some ground to this behaviour such as the Nanamugi Incident involving Satsuma and the British, others moderates prefer to negotiate with foreign powers to strengthen and modernize Japan rather than blindly attacking foreigners and pro-shogunate people. The vast majority of the Shinsengumi prefers to stay neutral, although they also express concern for the lack of meaningful response of the Shogunate.
- The Dreaded: By 1864, after the infamous Ikedaya Incident, the Shinsengumi became synonym of terror to their enemies, to the point many of the Shishi actually fled Kyoto for a time.
- Fantastic Caste System: The Tokugawa Shogunate was also known for its class system, who forced every Japanese citizen to stay in their social class no matter what.
- Foregone Conclusion: People already familiar with the Bakumatsu and the Shinsengumi will likely know that most of the Shinsengumi doesn't make it to the end, along with several important politicians during the early Meiji Period.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: The story opposes two major factions, split between the shishi faction, who want to overthrow the Shogunate in the Emperor's name, thinking it to be too weak to deal with foreign powers, and the pro-shogun faction, who want to promote the "Kōbu gattai" (Union of the Imperial Court and the Shogunate), as a middle ground between nationalist sentiment, keeping the Shogunate alive, and dealing with foreign trade. However, both sides use increasingly violent means to fight their respective enemy. And there's individual people such as Sakamoto Ryouma who don't belong to any faction, who are just trying to do the right thing without being involved in factional disputes.
- Gunboat Diplomacy: Centuries of self-imposed isolation were suddenly put to an end in 1853 by the Black Ships, starting the Bakumatsu and the events of the game.
- Historical Gender Flip: Like its predecessor, most of the historical characters are women in the setting and depicted as no less badass than their real life counterparts.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: Downplayed. The members of the Shinsengumi are portrayed as anti-heroic individuals with an honor code, but doing increasingly violent and questionable actions over the years, with varying degrees depending on the two viewpoints:
- Bushi no Kodou recounts the events from the pro-Sonnō jōi side with the 47 Ronin, which depicts them as a ruthless police force bent on arresting everyone suspected to be a part of the Choshu Domain, and are not above using torture and fabrications to get what they want, and later on became infamous for the Ikedaya Incident, in which they trapped and arrested many retainers of Choshu.
- Miburo features them as the main anti-heroines, and depicts their humble origins as commoners who climbed through the ranks of the Tokugawa Shogunate (known for its strict class system) through hard work and violence, giving more insight to their actions in Bushi no Kodou, especially during the Ikedaya Incident. Though most of their members are portrayed sympathetically, some of them are all too aware of their tendency to violence and their contradictory "honor code".
- Honor Before Reason: Downplayed. As the Tokugawa Shogunate slowly crumbles due to the influence of foreign powers, both the Shishi and the Shinsengumi use questionable means outside of their usual "honor code" to achieve their goal.
- Jidaigeki: The work is set at the end of the Edo Period during the Bakumatsu, which translates as "Final years of the Shogunate".
- Knight Templar: The Mibu Roshigumi, while technically enforcers of peace, went on the become a terrifying Secret Police as the Shinsengumi as they use incredibly violent means to reduce Choshu's influence.
- Nepotism: One of the major flaws of the Tokugawa Shogunate's class system. Everyone, from the daimyo to the humble merchant, is stuck in their class from birth to death with almost no way of climbing through the ranks, with the sole exception of adoption into samurai families.
- Occupiers Out of Our Country: The very basis of the Sonnō jōi movement (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians), a sentiment shared by almost everyone in varying degrees, from the most moderates open to the idea of exchanging with foreign powers to the most radical assassinating foreigners and sympathizers of the Shogunate.
- Patriotic Fervor: Shared by almost everyone in the country, since the events of the story are set in the late Edo period and 10 years after the Black Ships. However, nationalistic sentiment is sharply divided between straightforward assassination of pro-shogunate people and foreigners for the extremists, or diplomatic and political intrigues for moderates, both with the goal of overthrowing the Tokugawa Shogunate whom they see as unfit for governing Japan.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Bureaucratized: Following the Meiji Restoration, the key members of the Satcho Alliance gave themselves positions of power within the new government. However, since most of them are warriors, they ultimately required the advice of Enomoto and Katsu alongside several former members of the Tokugawa Shogunate, due to their experience in politics.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Downplayed. The Boshin War is the consequence of multiple factors and building tension between the Satcho Alliance and the Tokugawa Shogunate, but several people among them, most notably Katsura Kogoro, Arima Touta, Kuroda Kiyotaka and Saigo Takamori, do their best to prevent executions and massacres as much as possible. As a result, the Boshin War lasted for more than a year with the number of casualties being small relative to the size of Japan's population.
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Spiritual Successor: Being a work centered on the Shinsengumi, Miburo shares similar themes and settings with ChuSinGura 46+1 and its ronin. - State Sec: Following the transition to the Shinsengumi, the group is now directly under the command of Matsudaira Katamori, the Military Commissioner of Kyoto and Daimyo of the Aizu Domain.
- Stealth Sequel: Midway through the game, it is revealed that the events of Miburo happened at the same time as Bushi no Kodou, making it a P.O.V. Sequel to ChuSinGura 46+1.
- Sympathetic P.O.V.: Miburo represents the more human side of the Shinsengumi to its parent story, Bushi no Kodou, which depicts them as the antagonists.
- Velvet Revolution: Attempted by Sakamoto Ryouma in her gambit to peacefully transition Japan into a modern state. It works for a time thanks to Yoshinobu's political skill and savviness who's able to maintain stability by abdicating her power to the Imperial Court, but even she can't control everything and is eventually forced to declare war due to unrest in Edo.
- Won the War, Lost the Peace: The Boshin War ends with the victory of the Satcho Alliance. However, when Okubo started her vast plans of reform, many samurai of the Satsuma Domain resigned (including Saigo) in protest for the abolition of the samurai class, claiming that the country was becoming too "western". It eventually escalated with the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, which opposed the new Imperial Army against the former samurai of Satsuma, resulting in thousand of deaths, exceeding the Boshin War despite its smaller scale. After the death of Saigo, Okubo herself was killed in the aftermath by either former samurai loyal to Satsuma, Okada Izou for the assassination of Sakamoto Ryouma, or Saitou Hajime for her role in the Boshin War.
- World of Action Girls: The vast majority of the female characters are hardened warriors, outnumbering the few major male characters of the game.
