More than two weeks before the Rio de Janeiro Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The mood is rising for a sports festival once every four years.
I'm a little quick, but after Rio is over, Tokyo four years later. That check-out emblem has penetrated with the sale of related goods.
On the official website, the emblem says, "I drew a stylish Japanese style with a checker design that was historically loved around the world and spread as a checker pattern in the Edo period", each of which is a combination of three types of indigo blue squares.
So why is this checker mark a checker pattern?
The keyword is "Hakama of Kabuki actor Ichimatsu Sanokawa in the middle of Edo period".
Ichimatsu Sanokawa played his small surname, Kumenosuke, on the stage "Shinju Mannenso" at Edo Nakamuraza, and became a popular person.
He loved the hakama, which alternately arranged the white dark blue squares he wore at this time, and was also drawn in actor paintings.
(Photos are quoted from Kamenoe Fujikawa and Ichimatsu Sanokawa/Cultural Heritage Online)
It's very popular as a kimono pattern.
It seems that it has come to be called a shimatsu pattern.
At that time, Nakamuraza was already the birthplace of Kabuki.
(The photo shows the monument of the birthplace of Edo Kabuki in Kyobashi).
From Nakahashi Minamichi (near Kyobashi) via Negimachi (Nihonbashi Horidomecho).
It was relocated to Sakaimachi (Nihonbashi Ningyocho 3-chome).
The gorgeous appearance can also be seen in the restored exhibition in front of the Edo Tokyo Museum.
A checkered pattern that was sent to the world as an emblem of the Olympic and Paralympic Games 270 years after the Edo period.
I am very happy to see it not only in Edo Tokyo, but also throughout Japan and around the world until 2020.
