織田信長の陰陽に候: 光秀と秀吉 The Ying and Yang of Oda Nobunaga: Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi

''They must be destroyed. (Here the kanji 誅 'chuu' implies the idea of exacting punishment from above)''

 バガボンドに次によく戻って読み返す漫画は「センゴク」のシリーズである。この漫画の魅力の点を上げようとしますと数えきれないほどもありますが、強いて言えば実際の歴史資料に基づいて人間の性のあるゆる面を描写するリアリズムです。
The manga I probably go back and read the most after Vagabond is the Sengoku series. There are so many great things about this manga, but if I was pressed to say what I like most, I must admit that it is the sense of realism conveyed by a historical-document based narrative which depicts every facet of human nature. 

シリーズの第三弾となる「センゴク一統期」は豊臣秀吉が信長から引き継いだ天下統一の事業を描きます。この編は本能寺の変の後に繰り広げる織田家の両翼であった明智光秀と豊臣秀吉(当時は羽柴秀吉)の間に勃発し、世に言う「山崎の戦」から始まります。

The second installment, "Sengoku Ittouki (Sengoku: The Annals of Unification)", depicts Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his attempt to carry on Oda Nobunaga's quest to unify all of Japan. It begins with the Battle of Yamazaki, which pitted the two wings of the Oda clan, Akechi Mitsuhide and Toyomi Hideyoshi (known as Hashiba Hideyoshi at that time), against each other following the Incident at Honnoji. 

 「センゴク一統期」の前の編である「センゴク天正記」に戻ってみたいと思います。この編は1574ごろから始まりますが、実際の織田家と同様に光秀と秀吉がその中心人物となります。この二人は対称的に描かれているのは特に印象的です。狡猾かつ策略的で描写される光秀は「陰」を象徴する一方、明るい性格で失敗を挽回し前向きで描写される秀吉は「陽」を表しています。「陰」と「陽」はそれぞれ「夜」と「日」に当たるの如く、この二人の組み合わせで織田家の両翼が成り立っていました。切り離せばその成り立ちが崩れてしまいます。

Here I'd like to go back to the previous installment in this series, "Sengoku Tenshouki (Sengoku: The Tenshou Period Account). It begins around 1574, and just as was the case with the Oda clan in real life, the main characters driving the story are Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi. The symmetry crafted by the contrasting depiction of these characters is profound. The cold and calculating Mitsuhide represents the darkness, while the bright and positive Hideyoshi, who always makes up for his failures, symbolizes the light. Just as darkness and light make up night and day, these two individuals make up the two wings of the Oda clan. Separate the two and everything comes crumbling down.

この写真で写している一コマでは、漫画で描かれる上記の関係を見事に表している発言があります。

The cell pictured in this photo contains a quote that wonderfully shows how the aforementioned relationship between the two is depicted in the manga. Here's the translation.

「明るき光で導く将(秀吉)、合理的な光にて牽引する将(光秀)、
人はそのいずれに従ってゆくことになろう。」

"The leader that stands as the luminous light which leads the way (Hideyoshi), and the leader that stands as the force of logic which drives people forward (Mitsuhide). In the end, people end up following one of the two."

 ''The world will be turned on its head... With the masses ruling those who now rule them.''