NAGOYA: A statue of powerful sixteenth-century warlord and samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi has been beheaded outside a Japanese shopping arcade.
The vandalism occurred at the Endoji shopping arcade in Nagoya, where the statue served as a symbolic figure for the mall.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed the unification of Japan during the sixteenth century and is also known for his failed attempts to invade the Korean peninsula.
The shopping arcade association is considering filing a damage report with police regarding the incident.
No information is available about who damaged the statue or their reasons for doing so.
This vandalism follows similar attacks against other warlord sculptures outside the same shopping arcade in central Japan.
These statues were reportedly donated by a real estate company in 2013.
In 2022, a statue of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Toyotomi’s rival and the first shogun of the Tokugawa Edo period, was knocked down and had a hole made in its back.
The figure of Oda Nobunaga was found missing an arm in 2019.
These three warlords are Japan’s most famous historical figures who fought to unify Japan and end approximately one hundred years of warring states period.
Statues of historical figures have become subjects of fierce debate in other countries, particularly those related to colonialism and slavery. – AFP
