Look at Okita’s haori jacket carefully! Can you see the round black marking on it?
It is his family’s emblem, called “Kamon.” It’s a Japanese tradition to put one’s own Kamon on a formal haori jacket. Isn’t that cool? Okita’s design is known as “Maru ni Mokko” (rose within a circle).
Sanosuke Harada, the captain of squad #10, had an interesting Kamon.
It is said that he had an argument with a samurai when he was young. He got angry when the samurai said to him, “You’re so low-class that you don’t even know how to commit ritual suicide!”
Can you imagine what Harada did in the next moment? He cut his belly in front of the samurai … oops!
His scar looked like the kanji for the number “one” (it’s basically a horizontal line like this: “-”), so he changed his Kamon to “Maru ni Ichi” (one within a circle).
He often joked, “My belly knows the taste of metal!” while sunbathing his belly, and got a perfect nickname from the other Shinsen-gumi members: “Almost-Killed Sanosuke.”
TRILOBITE PUNCH & Kayo
