Admiral Tōgō

Embedded portraits of individual naval commanders were something new on the scene. They not only singled out contemporary heroes (an old practice indeed), but turned them into celebrities with instantly recognizable faces. None was accorded greater popular veneration than Admiral Tōgō, who is depicted in the following six postcards. Tōgō became the prototype of what came to be known in early 20th-century Japan as the gunshin or “military god.”