It’s been a couple months since the Iki Island Expansion came out, and that gave me some time to think about the additional lore and worldbuilding we learned in this new story. It’s time we analyze one of the most enigmatic characters of Ghost of Tsushima, once obscured in shadow and now finally revealed, in a concluding chapter to this epic saga. A figure intertwined with so many other’s lives, each with their experiences, so that it’s hard to cut to the truth of who this man really was. Ultimately, this was a man whose image relies on what others thought of him, rather than what he would say of himself. I will do my best to wrap everything we know into one examination, one portrait. This is the tale of Kazumasa Sakai.
Long before the events of Ghost of Tsushima and the war on Iki Island, Kazumasa was once a humble samurai, the young head of Clan Sakai. At some point, he must have shown great loyalty and promise to Clan Shimura, as he was allowed to marry Chiyoko, the daughter of the jito of the island. But rather than be a diplomatic marriage, it seems to have been a marriage of genuine affection. This was a couple with great promise. Kazumasa, the stern, calculating military leader, and Chiyoko the intuitive, compassionate nurturer. They were in harmony as long as they acknowledged each others differences and moved forward together. They respected the strength in each other. During this time, they had a son, Jin Sakai, and Chiyoko raised him with a pure and gentle heart. It’s from Chiyoko that Jin develops an appreciation for beauty, to be in harmony with nature, and to find meaning in the simple pleasures of life and not just studying warfare. It’s from Chiyoko that Jin develops a personal sense of self-value and morality which he took with him into his adulthood. This was a time of Balance in the Sakai family.
However, tragedy struck when only a few years into their marriage, Chiyoko developed a slow and painful illness that was draining the life out of her. Kazumasa had always been supported with Chiyoko’s presence, and so this was a blow to his mental health more than he could ever have anticipated. His love of life waned, and he became depressed. When Chiyoko passed away, he must have been so distraught and out of touch with reality that he failed to notice when little Jin had run away from home. For three days, Kazumasa beat himself up over this until Jin was finally found at the brink of death. Instead of it being a moment where Kazumasa resolved to take responsibility for Jin and give him all the care and attention he needed, it seems that he did the opposite.
The memoirs of Yuriko provide addition insight into this time. Kazumasa found an unlikely consolation in Yuriko, who had harbored feelings for him for years. Yuriko knew Kazumasa in a way that few others had ever seen, that underneath his deep sadness was a man struggling to be heard, to be known and loved. They had a romance which appears to have strengthened him after his wife’s death, and yet, even this doesn’t seem to have helped his deeper problem. While perhaps Kazumasa was able to properly mourn and move on from his wife, he left the upbringing of Jin to Yuriko rather than taking initiative himself. In a twist of fate, this opened the door for other influences to take over in Jin’s youth.
Years of steely silence passed between Kazumasa and Jin. Kazumasa was essentially a workoholic, resorting to doing what he knew best, which was to fight continually on the campaigns he was assigned to. It was the easy way out of his insecurities, the fact he was left with a son he had no idea how to raise, something only his wife managed to do. Perhaps Kazumasa was afraid of harming Jin in some way with his incompetency, and thus left it to others to take care of him. On the other hand, something about his son gave him disgust: Jin was not like him at all. Jin was fragile, clumsy, and not up to his standards of courage and zeal. Kazumasa must have been openly verbal about this, for Jin to have memories of it. Thus, if Kazumasa ever did train Jin, it was only in how to be a proper samurai, and not a proper man. It seems that training was left to another…
By the time of the Yarikawa Rebellion, it appears that Kazumasa Sakai and Lord Shimura had become very close. This part of Tsushima’s history is still mostly obsured, but what we do know is that Clan Shimura was on the brink of destruction due to the treachery of Clan Yarikawa, and Kazumasa Sakai was instrumental in turning the tide of the war. How this was done is only left to speculation. I believe that when Lord Shimura was at his weakest and most demoralized, he was inclined to listen to Kazumasa’s advice, and take on a more ruthless approach to warfare with more flexible tactics. In one account found in the game, young Lord Shimura singlehandedly deceived a squadron of rebels by luring them into a forest, and getting them lost before ambushing them from behind. In times of desperation, you do what you must to win. Lord Shimura was given the credit for the overall victory, and became jito of Tsushima while Kazumasa preferred to fight as his righthand man. As he told Jin years later, his heart was not in stewardship or bureacracy, but in the warrior’s way. Together, the Rising Sun and the Lightning in the Storm ruled Tsushima. This was Balance.
Nevertheless, the friendship of Lord Kazumasa Sakai and Lord Shimura was not always harmonious. In the years after the Rebellion, Lord Shimura was insecure about his power and looked to consolidating all his strength at Castle Shimura, the throne of his ancestors. He also became very rigid in terms of law and order, obsessed with upholding his image and legacy in the eyes of the people. Kazumasa was not a fan of this, seeing it as narrow-minded and weak, but he insisted on loyalty to his lord. Perhaps he too understood what it felt like to be insecure.
In the meantime, despite lasting peace on Tsushima, Iki Island had become an increasing threat. Raiders and smugglers constantly harrassed the trade routes between Tsushima and mainland Japan, and after decades of harm it had reached its zenith. If this wasn’t stopped, Tsushima would become increasingly weakened and eventually overrun by raiders themselves. Whether it was the shogun’s will or Lord Shimura’s, it doesn’t matter. The decision was made to invade Iki Island and rid the place of raiders once and for all. And Lord Kazumasa Sakai was hand-picked to head the campaign and subjugate the island under the shogun’s law. Who else to undertake such a daunting task but the Lightning in the Storm, the famed samurai who could slay dozens in his wake?
Kazumasa was ready to treat this mission the same as his others, but there was an added complication this time. Someone, who is not obvertly stated, orders that Jin would join Kazumasa on the campaign. Jin, who had been left at home and had never fought before. Jin has a memory of an argument he overheard where Kazumasa protested this. It was a dangerous mission, and if Jin were lost, the Sakai name may be lost. I want to go over this detail a little bit later, a theory I have of what was actually going on. But no amount of arguing could sway the decision, and so it was settled.
How long the Sakai Invasion lasted is unknown, and it was enough time to establish a fort and begin patrols of samurai all across the island. Kazumasa begrudgingly accepts Jin’s presence at first, but as Jin showed more skill and bravery, he is more pleased. Kazumasa puts Jin through some grueling situations, made all the worse by the brutal retaliation of the raiders. Jin witnesses intense levels of bloodshed on both sides, hard for a boy of 14 or 15 to watch, and yet he gets through it. Perhaps Jin is not so soft after all.
At the battle of Kidafure, Kazumasa makes a brutal statement to Iki Island’s people that siding with the raiders would never be tolerated, and the penalty would be death. Kazumasa likely had done this a dozen times before against bandits and other people he deemed guilty of treason. He had no problem with his new nickname, the Butcher of Iki, as long as it served him well. But this might have been the first time that anyone objected to him, which may have been surprising. Yes, it’s Jin his own son who challenges what he has done. This is a piece of Chiyoko’s spirit speaking out to him. Kazumasa does not change his mind over one mere objection, but it gets him thinking about his long-lost wife. Later that night, he chooses to open up to Jin, and reveal a little bit more about his relationship with Chiyoko. In some of the most important dialogue in the whole story, Kazumasa reveals what Chiyoko’s contrasting perspective meant to him, that losing her was like losing his better half. He’s admitting that he knows he’s not perfect, but that Jin has become this new voice to better himself. After all the estrangement and isolation, Kazumasa and Jin finally find something in common: a love and admiration for Chiyoko. And so their bond begins to heal.
So many thoughts probably opened up to Kazumasa in that moment. The thought that maybe he could be a father again. That maybe he could redeem himself from some actions he knew deep down were not right. Perhaps he had made misjudgments in his campaign on Iki Island, that he had lost opportunity to establish peace by becoming too harsh. Perhaps his striving to uphold his legacy had gotten in the way of what matters more, the nurturing of his own flesh and blood. Perhaps it was time to start over, and become something different. A second chance at finding balance.
The real turning point is when Kazumasa chooses to take responsibility of the relationship he has with his own son.
By the end of the Sakai campaign and everything seems to be settled, Kazumasa has finally come to understand and appreciate Jin just a little bit better. His son is brave, resilient, insightful, and having a lot of great qualities. Even though he isn’t exactly like himself, he feels Jin will continue the Sakai legacy, the thing he cared most about preserving. Kazumasa wanted to share all this with Jin, and maybe even ask forgiveness, but alas, this moment is taken from them when the raiders stage a final attack and separate Kazumasa and Jin. Jin is abducted and brought to Senjo Gorge, but Kazumasa rescues him and together they retreat to the shoreline. Jin hides while Kazumasa fends off the enemies, but there are just too many of them. Imagine what he felt when he saw Jin hiding in that shack, just watching as Kazumasa crawled on the ground. He begs Jin to help him in his time of need, and yet he is rejected… what does this mean?
Kazumasa would never know. His deeds have finally caught up with him, and submits to his fate.
The life of Kazumasa Sakai is just as messy as the real life of anyone who commits bloodshed for a living. To be the judge of life and death is not only a nearly impossible task, but one that causes major mental stress and even illness. Kazumasa Sakai is definitely the closest we have to a character suffering from clinical Depression in Ghost of Tsushima. The loss of his wife produced long-lasting effects that harmed him and the people around him, more than he could ever see himself. His guilt and insecurities were made many times worse and haunted him for years, this constant feeling of needing to achieve, to live up to his expectations and what he felt was his legacy. He created a brutal, remorseless reputation that was simultaneously effective and disastrous. And underneath all that was a man struggling to be free from his burden, held captive to something he didn’t even recognize until it was perhaps too late. In many ways, he is no different from Lord Shimura. Jin’s two father figures were plagued by the same fears, flaws and sorrows which in turn risked being passed down to him, generational pain. But as I said in my previous essay analyzing the Iki Island story, Jin makes a conscious decision not to continue down these paths. Jin is going to make his own legacy, regardless of what his ancestry tells him on either side of his family.
One of the things I appreciated so much about this DLC was that Kazumasa is still left to interpretation, with many knowledge gaps left unfilled. This is no different than real life, where we rarely have our conflicts resolved with a bowed tied on top. Did Kazumasa actually change? Was he fully redeemed? Much like Lord Shimura, I feel this answer is up to the audience. I think it’s more realistic to see Kazumasa as setting down the path of change, in which he died prematurely before he found complete transformation. Jin’s final hallucination was not merely the poison twisting Kazumasa’s personality, but it was meant to be Kazumasa as he really was at that stage. Just because he started appreciating Jin doesn’t mean he had a radical shift in his ways of thinking about what it means to be a warrior. He still would have bid Jin to avenge him, if he would not die as a warrior with him, and Jin would have still rejected that command. Unlike Lord Shimura, Kazumasa never gets to actually see the transformation of Jin or have potential to be transformed himself. It is a sorry fate for a man whose death ended up benefiting many beings, but whose continued life could have seen so many more lives saved. Still, we do not know the paths these characters would have taken had things gone differently, and that is only for us to speculate.
This is where I want to wrap around to something I mentioned earlier, about why Jin was bid to join Kazumasa in the first place. Jin was finally of age when he could start being his own man, and I think someone knew the true power of Jin more than anyone else. In an effort to steer some of Kazumasa’s actions on Iki Island, I think it was Lord Shimura who asked Kazumasa to take Jin with him. He knew that Kazumasa chose to estrange himself from Jin all those years, and he saw this as an opportunity where they could finally reconnect, when Kazumasa would have otherwise done nothing. Now that Jin was growing up, perhaps he could finally make an impact on Kazumasa and steer him towards less harsh decisions. Perhaps he did it thinking of his sister Chiyoko, and what she would have wanted to happen. In a strange way, perhaps we ought to give Lord Shimura some credit for the healing of Kazumasa too, who was lost in his own darkness and seemed to have no remedy. It turns out that Jin might have been the cure. But it is ironic that Jin would also lead to Kazumasa’s death, and that Lord Shimura would ultimately benefit from it.
When I first went through the story of Iki Island, I had a drastic change of opinion of Kazumasa Sakai. I was hoping he was going to be a really good person despite his depression, someone that Jin should have bonded with all along. In the end, Kazumasa left a legacy of pain and failure that Jin would only be burdened with if he tried to uphold it. We have the combined memoirs of Yuriko and the people of Iki Island to show as that Kazumasa was a deeply flawed individual but with true goodness buried within. Only now do I start looking at Kazumasa with the slightest bit sympathy, knowing that he was willing to change when the opportunity was given to him. And yet, he still had to suffer consequences for not taking responsibility for his actions when he needed to. Real life is so much more complicated than villains and heroes, and most characters in Ghost of Tsushima toe that line constantly. It shouldn’t be surprising that Kazumasa Sakai ends up being both the villain and hero of his own story as well.
