Artist's commentary
God's Remains
It's said that the puppet samurai was once controlled by a great shrine maiden of the past.
Long, long ago, there was a god of the earthly domain who possessed incomparable power. He hunted beasts, vanquished evil, and carried battles to victory. But after many years of fighting to protect humankind, that god was betrayed and killed by those same humans. Yet even after being run through with their blades, the god spoke not a word of anger or resentment towards his killers. Instead, he merely accepted his fate.
Thus did this god and protector of humankind have his body cruelly cut to pieces, his name stolen, and his existence as a deity ended by the very people he had spent his life protecting.
Well, I don't know if that's actually true or not, but regardless, that's Zanzaburo's story.
At any rate, when I found him in the treasury, he was so shabby that I genuinely couldn't believe he was actually the legendary husk of an ancient god. Still, as I was looking at his beat-up face, I found myself feeling so sorry for him that I decided to fix up his armor and helmet. That's how he became the Zanzaburo he is today.
Afterwards, we began traveling together, dancing together, and vanquishing evil together.
I may not know who my parents were, or where I was born, or really anything about myself, so in one sense, Zanzaburo is really the only family I have...
Oh, but that's enough for the sappiness. It looks like we've still got some trouble ahead of us tonight. There are dangerous creatures out there that we'll need to take care of with our evil-slaying dance.
Wake up, Zanzaburo!
That's right. Even as a husk, this god whose name was lost to time continues to serve as humankind's guardian.