Toshiro Mifune died of multiple organ failure in 1997 at the age of 77, but the impenetrable barrier of death hasn’t stopped Capcom from digitally skinning the legendary actor’s likeness for Onimusha: Way of the Sword.
“The protagonist of this game is a fierce young samurai, constantly moving from one bloody and gritty fight to the next,” the game’s official website reads. “To cement this image of a striking samurai, Capcom has turned to none other than the late, iconic Japanese samurai movie legend Toshiro Mifune to star as the face model for this rendition of Miyamoto Musashi.”
This should come as no surprise to those who watched the Onimusha anime on Netflix in late 2023, since Miyamoto Musashi appeared there as well. The show’s creators were similarly proud of the digital necromancy they performed to transpose Mifune’s face from the real world to animation in the marketing campaign leading up to its release.
Onimusha as a video game series is no stranger to using actors, both dead and alive, for its protagonists. Takeshi Kaneshiro played Samonosuke Akechi in Onimusha: Warlords, while subsequent installments used Yūsaku Matsuda (who died of bladder cancer in 1989 at the age of 40) and Jean Reno as face models for its protagonists.
Mifune’s appearance in Onimusha: Way of the Samurai was done with the full cooperation of Mifune Productions, the company the actor established in 1962 and which presumably owns his likeness today.
