Misawa has a habit of thinking about the possibility of incorporating everything around him into the form of a shoe, even if it is at the subconscious level. Whenever he is inspired, he sketches, semi-consciously while thinking of an idea. These pages are rolled up one after the other, after another. The ideas accumulate day by day. Among the motifs is even a battle scene from the hit anime "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.” Who else but Misawa would have found the arc drawn by the spearhead of a sword wielded at high speed artistic, or the movement created by many sword strokes and transformed them into the lines of a shoe? After several years had passed, when Misawa happened to come across some sketches from those days that he had almost forgotten, he stumbled across a project to create a work on the theme of Date Masamune (1567-1636); this feudal warlord born in Misawa’s hometown, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.
Masamune was a man good at both letters and the martial arts. He studied Buddhism, Chinese studies, literature, and imperialism from an early age, took lessons in Noh drama, played the taiko drum, and was well versed in waka poetry and the tea ceremony. He survived the fierce Warring States Period and built Aoba Castle in his lifetime. Actively introducing the culture of the Kamigata region (Kyoto and Osaka area), he created a style that combined the solemn and splendid Momoyama culture with the characteristics of the northern part of Japan. One of the craftsmen invited by Masamune, who had a high aesthetic sense, was Tanaka Zenzo, who had been given the title of "On-Akagane-Shi" (honorable metal carver) and was the founder of Tazen, which still makes history in Sendai today.
The boldness and fierceness of the samurai commander who wielded his sword like a dragon, the theatricality that would astound people around him, and the glamour that gave rise to the term "Date Otoko" (dandy) - could they not be expressed as "shoes" using the copper that Masamune loved with the skills of an On-Akagane-Shi?
The shoe is made of hard, heavy, and inflexible copper, which is the exact opposite to the flexibility and bendability of leather required for shoemaking. It must be a tremendous challenge; but in fact, it is an extension of the daily life of a craftsman who engages all five senses, faces the material, and creates something new with his own hands while applying his ingenuity in each step of the process.
Misawa grew up in Miyagi Prefecture and has accumulated experience as a traditional Western, custom-made shoemaker. Tanaka Zen lives in Sendai as the 19th Tazen, a modern-day On-Akagane-Shi, preserving the Japanese tradition inherited from Tanaka Zenzo.
“Masamune" is the result of a collaboration that seems to have been sent from the heavens by Lord Masamune.
It is a shoe that no one has ever seen before. Just as "leather" in Chinese characters "transforms" into "shoes," copper, which is said to be the first metal that man ever held in his hands, has been successfully transformed into shoes.
The bewitching and lustrous shapes that flow from the curves represent the crescent-shaped front adornment of the shining black warrior helmet, the symbol of Masamune, and are beautifully hammered; the straps arranged in a spiral shape convey the breath of the warrior who lived through the turbulent times with the afterimage of the sword. Made of copper nicknamed "Rainbow Copper" for its beauty as it ages, "Masamune" is brought to life by two craftsmen, and forever illuminates the shifting scenery on its skin, while bearing the spirit of the rare military commander Date Masamune.

Photo by Kohei Okuyama