Cheek Armor Cup, Tiger Form, Bronze

Koga's popular Hoyoroi-hai (Cheek-Armor Cup) series, as its name suggests, mimics armor that fully covers the chin and cheeks — a unique sake vessel that makes the drinker appear to be donning armor as they sip.
The motif is the "kawari-kabuto" — the distinctively individual, unconventional helmets worn by warlords of the Warring States period. Koga was moved by the way these men, risking their lives on the battlefield, still competed in a uniquely personal sense of beauty — the impetus behind this work.

As social media has developed, the present era has become one in which anyone can wield influence — an age of gekokujo (the low overthrowing the high), as Koga sees it. "If you have the will and resolve to open up the era, you can rise regardless of your origin." Through making {Hoyoroi Sakazuki}, Koga continues to send encouragement to today's high-minded warriors.

This work takes as its theme Takeda Shingen, one of the most legendary of the Sengoku-period warlords, and is distinguished by the menacing set of a tiger's mouth inspired by his epithet, the "Tiger of Kai." It forms a pair with a work whose motif is Uesugi Kenshin, who bore the epithet the "Dragon of Echigo."

The "bronze glaze" used on this piece is an original Koga developed over two years. It achieves the deep, time-worn tone of an ancient bronze artifact — a color only achievable with the whitest porcelain stone of all, from Amakusa in Kyushu.